No history book has a greater influence upon the public's
knowledge of state development than a survey text adopted by the
state's colleges and universities. The Mountain State has been
fortunate in its survey writing by having the long-running and
out-of-print work by Charles Ambler and Festus Summers and now the
present Otis Rice. Since the last edition of Ambler and Summers's
West Virginia: The Mountain State in 1958, a substantial
amount of time and writing on previously unexplored topics waited
synthesis. Rice's first edition appeared in 1985 with the laudable
goal of presenting a narrative history with essential and accurate
information, while deemphasizing the interpretive and analytical,
to "informed West Virginians and others interested" in state
history.

This new version has not undergone any extreme or significant
change. The main alterations include, presumably for purposes of
succession, the addition of a co-author, Rice's capable colleague
at West Virginia Institute of Technology, and a new fifteen-page
chapter which covers Governor Arch Moore's ill-fated third term and
Gaston Caperton's first administration. The configurations of the
original chapters and the pictures remain the same. Rice and Brown
have removed most glitches, revised the preface, added a footnote,
eliminated one paragraph from each of two chapters, and somewhat
updated the bibliography.

Because of the dominance of Ambler and Summers and this survey
in the study of state history, a brief comparison is necessary.
Having greater length for a shorter historical period, the older
book is vastly more encyclopedic. The Rice/Brown effort is a fine
narrative history written in a readable style that more than
fulfills the requirement of historiographic timeliness. Without
hint of parochialism, there is greater emphasis on social and
cultural matters within the confines of deterministic geography,
frontier land legislation, and resultant land tenure. The newer
work could profit from the editorial allotment of more pages so
that more details of the story could be presented, and some
interpretative effort could stimulate the narrative.

In a generally chronological approach, fourteen of the
twenty-five chapters of the book cover the Virginia origins of West
Virginia from the prehistoric to the statehood era. The placement
of early exploration and frontier settlement with their imperial
and colonial aspects in international and national perspective
reflects the breadth of approach in the entire volume. The authors
confront the main issues of western Virginian development and
several falsehoods that mountaineers have fabricated about
themselves. They view the land speculators' role before the French
and Indian War as constructive, and they correctly emphasize the
determinism of the Virginia laws of 1779 in alienating the land for
subsequent generations. The first settler claim, the Betty Zane
legend, and the false assertion that the Battle of Point Pleasant
in Dunmore's War was the first battle of the American Revolution
are temperately considered. Their dissection of social, cultural,
and educational life stresses its diversity and progress within a
difficult environment. The vivid portrayal of hardships and
deprivation should dispel any modern romantic notions of pastoral
Appalachian life before industrialization. Economic change
intensified the velocity and degree of hardship in the mountains.
The analysis of antebellum economic growth, the issues of sectional
conflict in Virginia, and the influence of slavery on politics
incorporates the latest scholarship in the field.

Perhaps the most controversial topic in West Virginia history is
the interpretation of the statehood movement and partisan
alignments during the Civil War. Little new scholarship has
propelled the analysis beyond that of Richard Or Curry and George
Ellis Moore. Unionist and secessionist viewpoints emerge while the
more extravagant claims made on behalf of statehood opponents are
qualified. Without new sources, John S. Carlile's motivations for
moving from statehood firebrand to opponent must remain somewhat
obscure. Civil War military campaigns are appropriately cast within
the strategic requirements of new state politics and national
necessity.

Relevant chapters on agriculture, industrial growth, labor, and
education intersperse those that trace state political complexities
through gubernatorial administrations to the present. The rendition
is comprehensive and adequate. Whatever is lacking in the text's
account is exactly what current historiographic research and
writing cannot support. Only a minimum of research has concentrated
on West Virginias Progressive Era (if it had one), the 1920s, the
New Deal, and post-World War II. Hardly any investigation exists on
West Virginia's legislature or its influential elected
judiciary.

In political matters, the authors and other historians should be
wary about taking at face value the politicians' labeling of
themselves, their legislation, and the advocations of their allies
and opponents. Because historians often starve for a good story to
spice their writing, they sometimes swallow camels. Corroboration
is required before accepting the account about Henry D. Hatfield's
alleged physical examination of Mother Jones at Pratt.

Because of its recent nature, historical emphasis in the new
chapter on the third Moore administration and the Caperton tenure
is tentative, but the authors more than catalog current events. The
tantalizing historical perennials of unemployment, population loss,
corruption, official ineptitude, tough environmental fights, the
teachers' strike and changes in public education, higher education
governance, and Senator Robert C. Byrd's funneling of federal
largesse bloom into full flower. No doubt exists that old themes in
state history resprout, but the historical jury of appraisal must
remain out, deferring to the passage of time.

Recent historical work could have amplified and sharpened
several topics. Richard K. McMaster's study of the early Virginia
cattle trade provides an opportunity to discuss national
implications of an important economic activity in the Eastern
Panhandle. Richard Lowe's work on Francis H. Pierpont and Virginia
Reconstruction could elaborate the interstate connections of West
Virginia's genesis. Ronald L. Lewis's and Joe W. Trotter's
publications about African Americans in the coal districts
illuminate several important features of society.

Because of his dedicated and continual research in West Virginia
subjects and because he is the author of the standard essay on the
writing of West Virginia history, no one could have been more
mindful of the difficulties of writing surveys and more likely to
overcome them than Rice. This work is a substantial professional
achievement. The new co-author has a significant legacy to
maintain. West Virginians and others must be indebted to both for
their graceful accomplishment.

The West Virginia Humanities Council deserves applause for its
support of the development and production of this collection of
essays. This much needed historiographical treatment of some state
history themes is must reading for all those who have an interest
in the states past and future. It also provides an understanding of
the present which, in the minds of many state citizens, is at best
ambivalent or negative. It affects the image by which West Virginia
is perceived. West Virginia has been characterized as the "saddest
of all American states," a "province" with seemingly "overwhelming"
liabilities, and as being more like Afghanistan than Switzerland.
In fact, some describe it as a state of "misery among riches," a
"colony" controlled by absentee landlords, suffering from
"population drain," "debased politics," and an endemic "deprssion
of the spirit." However, most agree that West Virginia has been
blessed with pristine natural beauty, and many will agree with
Theodore H. White that West Virginians are "the best mannered and
most courteous in the nation." In a variety of ways this work deals
with the problem of historical image.

Ronald L. Lewis and John C. Hennen, Jr. have done a first-rate
job as editors of this project. This kind of work would, by its
very nature, lend itself to editorial problems. Yet the editing has
resulted in a work with virtually no problems. The editors' goal is
to "provide scholars with a readily available assessment of the
state-of-the-literature in West Virginia studies, and to suggest
directions for productive new research to fill the existing voids,
or to correct misinterpretations." All of these clearly written
essays are rather thorough literature surveys. They deal with most
of the major historical problems in their topical areas and, as
might be expected, sometimes overlap. All make significant
contributions and raise important questions.

John E. Stealey's comprehensive essay on West Virginia politics
is a thoughtful analysis of the state's political issues,
historical trends, and the historians who have attempted to craft
the story. He reveals that a significant "scholarly vacuum" exists
and little has been accomplished in the realm of broad historical
interpretation and analysis. He has successfully perused the major
works on West Virginia politics and provides an excellent overview
of the subject. He finds research on antebellum West Virginia is
"undeveloped" and no modern riverain study exists. The impact of
progressivism in the state has not been studied, post-World War I
political history is a "vast desert," and little has been written
on the New Deal in the state. Studies of West Virginia congressmen
are "rare" and studies of legislative politics and legislators "are
generally lacking." Studies of the judicial branch are "needed to
comprehend political change," political corruption remains
"unexplored," and the careers of Matthew M. Neely, Jennings
Randolph, and Walter Hallahan await their biographers. In sum, the
field of modern political history is wide open.

Otis K. Rice thoroughly surveys the historiography of all levels
of education in West Virginia. He points out that "much remains to
be done, including a synthesis of western Virginia education prior
to 1863." He calls for an updating of Charles Ambler's History
of Education and more examinations of county and regional
educational trends. In higher education, Rice sees a need for a
system-wide historical approach, as well as biographies of
outstanding educators. He challenges professional historians to
"lift the educational historiography to a plane where it can
address the fundamental truths and values that have informed our
history from the time of the ancient Greeks to the present
day."

Paul Salstrom examines the economic history of the state and
raises questions about the dichotomy between its rich natural
resources and its historically weak economic position. His survey
of the literature reveals that little "analysis or interpretation"
exists, and agriculture and finance have received scant attention
from historians. A major gap requiring attention is mid-nineteenth
century empire building, causing the state to import more goods
than it exported due to lack of manufacturing. Another issue is the
role of the federal government in the development of the chemical
and manufacturing enterprises in the Charleston, Huntington, and
Parkersburg areas.

Edward M. Steel analyzes the historiography of the state's labor
history and concludes "only a beginning has been made." Pointing
out that labor history has only been recognized as an area of study
since the 1960s, Steel reveals gaps in the early history of the
region, including pottery, barrel making, and whiskey. Likewise, he
concludes that iron, steel, and other metal workers have been
neglected. Although historians have written about the railroads,
they have failed to focus much attention on the railway worker.
Moreover, historians have not documented the state's oil and gas
workers. Finally, he calls for more research on union
leadership.

Frederick A. Barkey reviews th literature on immigration and
ethnicity in the state. His well-reasoned analysis treats the
recruitment of immigrant laborers, their diversity, and
assimilation. He calls for an examination of the middle-class
immigrant's role in assimilation, as well as an analysis of
migration patterns. Finally, he feels the ethnic "sense of
community" must be explored and that historians should employ
demographic methodology.

Barbara J. Howe does an outstanding job of providing a
historical framework for the history of women in the state. She
places women's history in context and discusses the importance of
oral sources in documenting women's history. The role of women on
the frontier, during the Civil War, in the operation of family coal
mines, in religious life, and in World Wars I and II should be
explored. Likewise, work needs to be done on the women's academies,
women as independent agents, women's organizations, and the women's
movement. There is also a need for a biography of Anna Jarvis, who
stimulated interest in the establishment of Mothers Day. She argues
that the "field of West Virginia women's history . . . is one that
is open to anyone who wishes to contribute" and it "begs further
inquiry."

West Virginia's black history is an area which, according to Joe
W. Trotter, is "replete with blindspots." His excellent critique of
the literature and sources of black history is very useful. In
fact, there exists a large number of primary sources available to
scholars interested in black history. These include federal and
state demographic sources, manuscript and archival collections
found in depositories inside and outside the state, periodicals,
and oral histories. He calls for more studies of the "lives of
black women, life in mountain cities, and changes since the Great
Depression and World War II."

Finally, Dianne Bady and Richard Bady attempt to break new
ground by focusing on environmental issues in a historical and
public policy framework. They point out the basic problem of being
a "resource colony" to outside interests who have generally
controlled politicians of both parties. These interests blocked the
1903 attempt to raise corporate taxes and the enactment of a
severance tax. Although they attempt to place the environmental
issue in historical context, they fail to place it in the
historical context of the national conservation movement of the
Progressive Era and the impact of the New Deal. However, they
synthesize in excellent fashion the recent trends of the
environmental question. They deal with strip mining and conclude
that attempts to regulate or block it have been mixed. They address
the evils of acid mine drainage and the failure of the Division of
Energy to perform adequately its regulatory functions. They examine
the difficulty of regulating the timber industry and the problems
of air pollution. Likewise, they review recent debates on
out-of-state waste and groundwater. They conclude that the
successes on environmental issues resulted from various citizen
groups forged as a powerful political force. Finally, they point
out that West Virginians, as the operatives of outside corporate
interests, aided their exploitation, and this has been especially
true of the "politicians who have done the corporate bidding
throughout the states history."

Lewis and Hennen "hope to direct the attention of scholars
toward the abundant opportunities for producing a fresh crop of
historical studies from new unbroken fields." These essays succeed
in pointing the way. Yet if scholarship is to succeed, it must have
an outlet beyond West Virginia History. In order to bridge
the void in state history, there is dire need of a first-rate
university press. The scholars in this collection of essays have
issued the call for new research, but the stimulus of an
appropriate publishing outlet for research unique to West Virginia
is still needed.

Robert F. Maddox

Marshall University

WEST VIRGINIA: A HISTORY FOR BEGINNERS. By John Alexander
Williams (Charleston: Appalachian Editions, 1993. Pp. ix, 278.
$22.95.)

"As a citizen of the state, you will be called upon to make
judgements and choices for the future, no doubt involving others
who live here. A knowledge of West Virginia's resources --
including its institutions and cultural values -- will help you
make more intelligent decisions about our future. Simply put, you
should be better able to decide where your state should go if you
know where it's been." John Alexander Williams challenges the young
reader to face the future in West Virginia: A History for
Beginners, a thoughtful examination of the Mountain State's
rich and proud heritage.

As stated in the preface, the author believes that the diversity
of the people who settled this land is what makes our state's
history exciting. Throughout the book, individuals and their
interactions with others are presented as reasons why certain
events or changes occurred. With a narrative style and use of
interesting sidebar information, the text is well written and very
readable. Moreover, it piques the reader's curiosity for further
study.

The book is divided into four major sections covering what the
author refers to as the frontier, statehood, industrial, and
bureaucratic periods, and a fifth section on living in the state.
The frontier section discusses exploration and cultural exchange
between Native Americans and Europeans. Statehood examines the
issues of sectional conflict between eastern and western Virginia.
The industrial section defines the economic and industrial
development of the state and the bureaucratic segment details the
social impact of government, business, and labor on West Virginians
in the twentieth century. The last section covers food, clothing,
shelter, and includes biographies of famous and "not-so-famous"
West Virginia residents. Missing is any mention of Chuck Yeager,
Harmon Blennerhassett, Anna Jarvis, and other notables. Also
included in the back of the book are a glossary of ninety terms and
an index.

The information is presented in a style that is easy to
comprehend. Many excellent explanations are given for such complex
subjects as the French and Indian War and statehood. The text gives
in-depth coverage of Native American influence in the state. The
layout is to be commended for a nice balance of text, graphics,
occasional sidebars, and wide margins. Notably absent is standard
information of the state's geography and geographic regions. The
text has liberal illustrations, including many maps, charts,
photographs, and drawings. When the text mentions an event or area
in the state, an outline map with the particular county shaded is
usually found in the margin. In addition, important terms are in
bold print.

As a textbook designed to hold the attention of today's student,
the readability is excellent. On average, four study questions
requiring more than recall are at the end of each chapter. Students
are encouraged to interpret the information they examine. However,
the book's stark black-and-white format will deter student
interest, and its paperback binding is not durable enough for the
classroom.

A teacher's guide is available which attempts to fill the text's
geography gap left "for instructors who prefer to present
geographic information in more traditional formats." Primary source
documents are included for each chapter as well as suggested
background readings. While it does not have reproducible blackline
masters, it includes activities for different learning styles, with
many suggestions for assignments requiring students to do further
research.

Although there is still not a definitive textbook for younger
readers on this topic, Williams makes an admirable contribution to
educating students on the state's history. All West Virginians, and
those who wish to learn more about the state, will find this book
to be very enjoyable and one they will refer to time and time
again.

Barbara Christo

Nitro High School

THE ANTEBELLUM KANAWHA SALT BUSINESS AND WESTERN MARKETS. By
John E. Stealey, III (Lexington: Univ. Press of Kentucky, 1993. Pp.
256. $36.00.)

The neglect of economic historians to relate properly the
contributions of midwestern and western enterprises to the economic
development of the nation prior to the Civil War is partially
remedied by this volume. The Antebellum Kaawha Salt Business and
Western Markets is a piece of meticulous scholarship and an
outstanding reconstruction, mostly from primary sources, of one of
the first major manufacturing industries to develop in what is now
southern West Virginia. This volume traces the development of the
salt industry in the Kanawha Valley.

The book is the accumulation of thirty years of intensive
research by the author, a task made difficult by the general
absence of corporate records and correspondence. Nevertheless,
using legal documents such as court and property records, reports
of legislative committees, and minutes of corporate meetings, the
author has reconstructed the period in which the industry grew and
ultimately declined. The thoroughness of the author's research by
itself would recommend the book, but there is also much more.

A dominant theme is the continuing attempt of salt manufacturers
to control the market in which they sold their product. While there
were a few short-term successes, most of these efforts failed. It
was only when market conditions created desperate situations that
the fiercely individualistic owners considered a joint operation to
limit supply to the market, insuring prices sufficient to cover
production costs. The efforts of the Kanawha entrepreneurs, for
even the most casual reader, will lead to comparisons with those of
oil sheiks to limit production and control price through the
Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Competition
from outside producers, inability to prevent cheating, and a market
that absorbed only a portion of production doomed both to
failure.

These attempts at combination, cooperation, and collusion
predate the more widely publicized corporate trusts, joint stock
companies, and pools of the post-Civil War period. The author notes
that this post-Civil War collusive activity was an extension and
refinement of earlier legal organizations. The business
organizations attempted in the saline bottoms of the Kanawha Valley
were the direct forerunners of the business concentrations of the
latter nineteenth century. Unable to rationalize production on
their own, the salt manufacturers sought an ally in state
government, petitioning for corporate charters, internal
improvements, and reduced taxes with only limited success.

At the national level, attempts to retain the tariff against
imported salt were not completely successful, resulting in limited
insulation against foreign competition. The desire to be protected
from competition from foreign producers, neighboring states, and
among themselves dominates the industry's history. Like their
counterparts of today, the salt producers favored free trade in
principle. But they also saw it as a potential source of personal
ruin and relentlessly pursued its limitation.

Feeling they possessed a superior product, the Kanawha
businessmen saw government regulation as a way of keeping an
adulterated and improperly weighed product off the market. They
also favored state banking over a federal system and sought either
branches of existing banks or charters for their own financial
institutions from the state.

The inclusion of salt in the tariff debates of the antebellum
period demonstrates its importance. Led by Missouri Senator Thomas
Hart Benton, critics charged that consumers of pork were gouged by
unnecessarily high prices caused by the artificially maintained
price of salt. The arguments used by the salt producers, including
stability of supply, local employment, and product quality, were
essentially the same as those advanced recently by the opponents of
the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

More than just a recitation of the internal and external legal
environments, this book also shows how technological advances
created an industry which was dynamic, despite the uncertainties of
the market, and controlled costs through improved efficiency. Many
of these techniques involving drilling, extraction, refining, and
marketing were later adapted by the oil and gas industry. Contrary
to the widely held view, the author finds no support for the
argument that slave labor retarded technological innovation. Faced
with a chronic shortage of labor and comparatively high wages,
slaves were imorted. The author concludes that slaves were well
treated, and students of the institution will benefit greatly from
his insights.

While one is tempted to say that this book is the last word on
the early Kanawha salt industry, areas remain for further study.
Economic historians might ask for more on the tariff's impact on
the price of pork; the demise of the industry either from
competition or from changes in the production and delivery of meat
to the consumer; the necessity of slavery; the role of salt in the
overall growth and development of the region; and the extent to
which credit limitations and an unstable banking system contributed
to the economic problems faced by the salt manufacturers. The
political historian might ask if the Richmond government's
unresponsiveness fanned separationist feeling and why this system
was not more supportive of the salt producers, considering the
industry's importance and the prominent positions of many company
founders.

One could amply illustrate an entire principles of economics
class by the story of the Kanawha salt manufacturers. The highly
competitive market is demonstrated by the dilemma of producers
caught with production exceeding demand, keeping prices chronically
low. Just as Adam Smith predicted, competition forced the
introduction of new technologies to lower costs. This book is an
important contribution to regional history, an understanding of
American business development, and the entrepreneurial initiative
underlying it. This is a well-told story of entrepreneurship,
revealing how innovators in a frontier industry both anticipated
and adapted to change by introducing new technologies and forms of
business organization, benefiting their region as they sought to
benefit themselves.

"It is the end of a great adventure"(415), wrote John W. Davis,
former West Virginia congressman and Solicitor General under
Woodrow Wilson, as he ended his tour as U. S. ambassador to Great
Britain. When the Clarksburg native and his wife Ellen arrived in
London in December 1918, high expectations existed for
Anglo-American cooperation. Especially on the part of the British,
there was talk of an Anglo-American partnership to maintain the
future peace and stability of the world.

Davis's predecessor at the Court of St. James's, Walter Hines
Page, had been so pro-British that Wilson eventually stopped
reading his cables. Although he delivered many obligatory speeches
extolling Anglo-American ties, Davis assumed a more responsible
diplomatic posture than Page. Nonetheless, his relations with the
president were not good. On November 25, 1920, he wrote in his
diary: "I do not and never have enjoyed his confidence,
notwithstanding the fact that I am not ashamed of the service which
I have rendered to his administration. . . . I confess that his
patent pettiness of souls fills me with the same disgust which has
infected all those who have been near him, save the sycophants and
time servers, and is responsible for the cold hatred which denies
him sympathy even in his illness."(362) Davis actually had a much
higher opinion of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George than
did Wilson. The president thought Lloyd George a "2nd rate
politician"(21, fn36), but Davis viewed him as the equal of
Benjamin Disraeli. After his first meeting with the Welshman, he
noted, "I have never seen a man who seemed to radiate more vitality
than he."(9)

The shared culture and many common political and strategic
interests created the myth of a "special relationship" between the
United States and Great Britain. Even during the blackest days of
World War I, when cooperation between the two great
English-speaking nations was absolutely essential to thwart German
expansionism and avoid defeat, there was a serious underlying
tension. The end of the common Grman threat tended to exacerbate
the differences between the two dominant postwar powers. Trade
rivalry, control of oil, and the dramatic fall in the value of the
pound sterling against the dollar were economic issues dividing
Washington and London. The failure to ratify the Treaty of
Versailles, the apparent desire to match or surpass British naval
strength, and economic nationalism as expressed by Washington's
position in international finance tended to undermine British
confidence in the U. S. as a global partner. Mutual suspicions were
also fed by the ubiquitous Irish problem and the thinly disguised
British efforts to harness American power to sustain the British
Empire. Davis's diary serves as a mirror which reflects this
tension during a period "unusually filled with stirring
incidents."(208) The Paris Peace Conference, foreign intervention
and civil war in Russia, and the Russo-Polish War are just some of
the subjects Davis writes about.

This reviewer cannot suppress the regret that Davis devoted the
bulk of his diary to the obligatory social life rather than
extensive commentary on these momentous events and the British
leaders with whom he mingled. There is hardly a day that Davis is
not at a luncheon, a dinner party, or the speaker at a public
ceremony or club and organization meeting. He seems to have met
every British personality of any political or social importance and
visited most of the great country houses and gentlemen's clubs. A
tennis player himself, he was a spectator at Wimbledon, observing
Suzanne Lenglen and William T. Tilden. He deemed the latter
"incomparably the best player I have ever seen."(314) When Davis
comments on these great men and women he is at times penetrating,
but, alas, he is more frequently tactful and pedestrian. One finds
little of the gossip, inside information, and wicked commentary
that is typical of another diarist of this period who traveled in
the same social circle, the famous British journalist Charles Court
Repington. "Trashy stuff in the main"(363), incidentally, was
Davis's verdict when Repington's diary was published in 1920 under
the title The First World War 1914-1918. "Trashy" it may be,
but Repington's diary remains an essential source for this
period.

Though tedious at times, Davis's meticulous accounting of daily
social activities serves the useful purpose of portraying the life
of an American diplomat in Britain in the early years of this
century. Certainly the monetary concerns of U. S. ambassadors who
were not men of considerable means are reflected. Davis received an
annual salary of $17,500 and a meager entertainment allowance. He
had to find his own living quarters and pay most of his
entertainment expenses. He once lamented: "I have lived simply,
avoiding extravagance or ostentation, either of which would have
been not only beyond my means but most unsuited to the times.
Nevertheless my unavoidable expenditures are considerably more than
twice the compensation of my office and out of all proportion to my
private income."(243)

Davis's daughter Julia Davis and Dolores A. Fleming, with the
editorial assistance of David W. Fleming, have done a model job of
editing the typed and holograph entries in Davis's diary, which is
located at the Sterling Memorial Library, Yale University.
Approximately 95 percent of the ambassadorial diary is published.
The co-editors do not paraphrase and most of the deleted material
consists of the names of individuals who were present at various
social functions but whose inclusion would add nothing to the value
of the work. Nicely illustrated, this volume has appendices and an
unusually valuable and thorough index. Explanatory footnotes,
located at the end of each chapter, strike just the right balance,
not overpowering the text but providing the reader with helpful and
necessary information. Davis and Fleming deserve very high praise
indeed for their exemplary editing. Their efforts obviously
represent a labor of love.

Certain people in West Virginia history deserve, indeed call out
for, biographical treatment. Lydia Boggs Shepherd Cruger surely is
one of these. A totally unique woman of her times, she lived to 101
years of age and embodied the scope of Virginia/West Virginia life
from frontier days through the tragedy of the Civil War. The title
Time Steals Softly, adapted from Shakespeare's "the
noiseless foot of time steals softly by," was carved on a sundial
in Cruger's garden.

Yet Cruger, unlike time, did not tread softly through anything.
Born in 1766 to a pioneer family of Frederick County, Virginia, her
family moved west to Virginias Ohio River country in 1775, where
her father Captain John Boggs tomahawked his claim several miles
below the new Wheeling settlement. Early on, Cruger showed an
independence, original mindedness, and sharp-tongued self-interest
that were her great strengths and most provoking irritants.

Cruger was always hard to ignore. The nineteen-chapter book
describes her life from the frontier terror of being captured by
Indians and bitten by a rattler to "La Grande Dame" glittering at
Washington parties and the "Ole Miss" of her solitary life in later
days. She was there at the 1782 battle of Wheeling's Fort Henry
when Betty Zane ran for the powder. Unfortunately, at age eighty
and with all other participants deceased, Cruger exercised a little
revisionist history, stating Molly Scott actually saved the day.
Sour grapes, perhaps, since in 1782, Betty Zane and Moses Shepherd,
a very eligible and soon-to-be wealthy young plantation owner, were
headed toward marriage. But Cruger, the talk of the town in a
wedding dress of black silk, married Shepherd herself. With this
came land, wealth, a respected husband, and in 1798, the most
imposing house in the area, Shepherd Hall.

By 1818, the Cumberland Road arrived literally right at the
Shepherds' front door, thanks to his role as the local bridge
engineer and the friendship of Henry Clay. Shepherd Hall became a
stopping place for the most important travelers, from Andrew
Jackson to Thomas Hart Benton. The Shepherds spent many months in
Washington City, meeting every president from Washington to
Fillmore, and cementing their friendship with Henry Clay. They even
built a monument to him in their front yard.

In 1832, Moses Shepherd died of cholera, and in 1833, the widow,
adrift and lonely, married General Daniel Cruger of New York,
fourteen years her junior. While not an easy marriage, it lasted
until his death in 1843. Cruger spent her remaining years becoming
more isolated and feeble. The few visitors who stopped found her
well informed on local and national issues, sometimes sparking a
flash of her fiery temperament. They often commented on the
upstairs ballroom she had filled with the fine old dresses of her
glory days. Cruger died September 29, 1867, and was buried beside
her two husbands on a hill overlooking her beloved mansion.

Virginia Jones Harper succeeds in capturing the spirit of a
local West Virginia woman and her times for the general reader. The
book is, in fact, a revised edition of a 1974 version. Harper, a
descendant of the Boggs family, has her heart in the right place,
but her literary style is sometimes irritating. Words such as
"sanguinary," "redolent," "cynosure," and "sibilant" are overdone,
and one is left wondering where history stops and literary license
takes over. Did she have an affair with Henry Clay? Some of the
fabricated dialogue can only be described as stilted, and the
description of the slaves and their dialect a la Gone With the
Wind might leave the reader uneasy.

However, the book is a best seller in the Wheeling area because
it ". . . brings to life a woman worth meeting and a time worth
remembering."

The coal industry has played a huge role in the economic growth
of West Virginia, and the state has been known as one of the
largest coal-producing states in the world. In conjunction with the
development of coal came another industry, railroads. The
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway Company (C&O) was a leader in the
construction of a rail network in West Virginia to transport coal
to the marketplace. In addition to construction, many railroads
looked for ways to develop coal lands along their rights-of-way.
The C&O established its Coal Development Office in Huntington
where author Fred Rees Toothman embarked on a career beginning in
1946, after graduating with a master's degree in mining engineering
from West Virginia University in 1945.

The reader is introduced to a brief history of the C&O with
biographical sketches of the men who led the railroad, such as
Collis P. Huntington, M. E. Ingalls, George Stevens, Robert Y.
Young, and Walter J. Yuohy. These are just a few of the men who
expanded the C&O to one of the largest coal-hauling lines in
the nation. When Toothman went to work for the C&O in the
post-World War II era, the railroad was prosperous. The 1946 annual
report discloses that it controlled stock in the New York, Chicago
and St. Louis Railroad Company, better known as the Nickel Plate.
The C&O also owned over 387,000 shares of stock in the New York
Central Railroad.

Each year of Toothman's employment until 1980 is discussed in
separate chapters. Highlights of each year's annual reports are
given first, followed by his personal remembrances of the year with
stories of his co-workers and job assignments. The annual reports
show the reader the financial condition of the railroad, where
improvements were made, when losses occurred, and long-range plans.
We follow the merger of the Pere Marquette with the C&O in
1947, the replacement of steam locomotives by diesels in 1955, the
merger with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1963, and the
proposed merger with the Norfolk and Western in 1965 to offset the
creation of the Penn Central System, a result of the merger of the
New York Central and Pennsylvania railroads.

The book provides information and insights about the C&O
between 1946 and 1980 that were not previously available in a
single source. The personal remembrances introduce the joys and
disappointments of Toothman's employment and personal life. For
anyone who would like to know about the C&O, this book is a
valuable source, particularly through information gained from the
annual reports. Toothman's personal remembrances, while worthwhile,
fail to provide sufficient detail, leading to confusion. The book
is geared to the reader who is interested in coal mining and
railroads.

Stephen L. Fisher deserves praise not only for editing this fine
work but also for his useful introduction. In the latter he notes
that regional stereotypes tend to dismiss the possibility that
Appalachians are capable of purposeful activism. Fisher contends
there exists within the region a long and diverse history of
resistance. Apart, however, from works dealing with coal miners,
there is "little systematic study of dissent in Appalachia."

In response to that lack, the articles gathered in this
collection fall under at least one of two purposes. They either
serve partially to chronicle the history of grassroots struggle in
the region since the early 1960s or to explore the theoretical
implications of that history. The goal, according to Fisher, is not
to develop an exclusively Appalachian theory of resistance. The
focus on a particular region does not entail isolationism, but
keeps an eye on the question of social movements, an issue for
modern society well beyond the geographical confines of the
southern mountains.

This book is successful if for no other reason than the essays
included demolish any image of Appalachians as passive, helpless
victims. Readers seeking additional examples of rebellion wil
benefit from the bibliography as well. Included in this volume are
accounts of grassroots organizations such as Save Our Cumberland
Mountains, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, and the Community Farm
Alliance. Collective resistance over single issues is addressed,
including job classifications for women and black lung
advocacy.

There is a particularly moving account of the Moss 3 plant
occupation during the Pittston coal strike, as well as a discussion
of the broader significance of miners' strikes and their relation
to the local community. In the latter essay, Richard Couto finds
that even if neither strikes nor social movements produce visible
fundamental change, they do constitute valuable "moments when
democratic imaginations are stirred," and people break out of
fragmented apathy to act as collective groups.

An article by John M. Glen on the evolving role of the
Highlander Research and Education Center concludes with the
observation that the Appalachian movement, unlike the civil rights
and labor movements, is not led by a single charismatic individual
or embodied in a centralized organization. The reader is left with
the impression that this characterization is not necessarily a
liability.

The final section in Fighting Back in Appalachia explores
the theoretical dimensions of regional popular resistance with some
discussion of culture, class, and gender. Among the articles is an
impressive collaborative treatment of the history of Appalachian
studies, which concludes with a suggestive appeal for the relevance
of postmodern theory.

Less satisfying is the concluding article by the editor. Fisher
sets up an opposition between two theoretical perspectives: New
Populism, with emphasis on community, decentralization, and
participatory democracy, and Marxism, with its critique of
political economy and emphasis on class analysis and struggle.
Fisher argues that New Populism is naive regarding capitalism and
theoretically vague in its advocacy of democracy and community.
Such criticism is not in and of itself misplaced. More disturbing,
however, is Fisher's subsequent defense of state bureaucracy,
concluding New Populist mistrust of state power misses the point:
"The issue is not just more government or less government, but for
whom the government works. . . ." Ultimately, Fisher's conclusion
confuses rather than clarifies the theoretical possibilities
available to Appalachian studies.

Nearly twenty years ago, in an article in Peoples
Appalachia (vol. 3, no. II), Bill Taft proposed a left
libertarian model for the Appalachian movement, one that combined
both a critique of political economy and an emphasis on
participatory democracy. With its clear attention to both class and
community, it would have made a more fitting conclusion to this
otherwise superb collection.

Gordon Simmons

Trans Allegheny Books

THE AIRWAVES OF ZION: RADIO AND RELIGION IN APPALACHIA. By
Howard Dorgan (Knoxville: Univ. of Tennessee Press, 1993. Pp. xv,
226. $18.95.)

Howard Dorgan is a professor of communications at Appalachian
State University. He has written two previous works on Appalachian
religion, Giving Glory to God in Appalachia and The Old
Regular Baptists of Central Appalachia. Dorgan has filled an
embarrassing void in Appalachian scholarship and mountain church
tradition in The Airwaves of Zion, an ethnographic study of
AM radio evangelism. The Airwaves of Zion is an important
first step in broadening our understanding of a major religious
element in the area. On Sunday mornings and weekdays it is
impossible to scan the radio dial without finding fundamentalist
"Come to Jesus" evangelical preaching. Dorgan provides a
well-illustrated exposition of these radio stations and introduces
the reader to the mechanics behind the scene. He has taken part in
many hours of participant observation and spent the time necessary
to examine in great detail the cultural heritage behind the
messages that are preached.

The preachers are usually not products of mainline
denominations, such as the Southern Baptists, but independent
nondenominational Holiness-Pentecostals, who are highly
indvidualistic or autonomous in practice. They have not received
formal training in broadcasting or theology and rely on divine
inspiration in delivering highly emotional, "stylized sermonic
techniques that in many cases are distinctly Appalachian." In oral
tradition, their skills have often been learned by serving a kind
of informal apprenticeship, hearing, and watching others.

Dorgan uses four case studies (Brother Johnny Ward of WMCT,
Mountain City, Tennessee; Rex and Eleanor Parker, WAEY, Mercer
County, West Virginia; Dean Field, WNKY, Letcher County, Kentucky;
and Brenda Blankenship, WELC, McDowell County, West Virginia) as
the basis of his work. Nearly parallel to Holiness-Pentecostal
church services, the radio programs are generally unstructured. In
respect to their Wesleyan heritage, the preachers attack alcohol
sales, lottery tickets, and roadhouses and combat every other kind
of "sin" imaginable from their broadcast booths. Sometime during
the program, long lists of people to be remembered in prayer are
given. Dorgan debunks the myth that radio preachers plead for
contributions from listeners. Broadcast time is funded by freewill
offerings, since radio stations do not provide free time. It is
rare for one of these preachers to ask for money in the style of
televangelists.

In comparison to other traditional religious practices of
Appalachia, the airwaves of Zion appear to be benign or in decline.
During the 1970s, a shift in listening audiences occurred when AM
stations lost 75 percent of their audience to FM stations. The
remaining listeners are older and "less affluent," which is less
attractive to advertisers. Changes in radio format and
"culture-based" innovations brought to Appalachia by "sojourners,"
tourism, and second-home real estate markets have also undermined
radio evangelism.

Dorgan makes several general statements that are not uniform in
Appalachia. He holds the assertion that "Holiness-Pentecostal
traditions allow women the full range of religious expression and
practice, including preaching, administering sacraments, and the
pastoring of fellowship."(55) This practice depends on local
belief. Many Holiness-Pentecostal churches do not allow "woman
preachers" in their pulpits and expect them to be subservient to
men. Dorgan also states that "the circumscription of snake handling
as worship is due, in part, to state prohibitions against the
practice, with West Virginia being the only exception to that
rule."(51) Snake-handling in religious services continues
throughout Appalachia. There are also snake-handling churches in
Fort Wayne, Indiana; Detroit, Michigan; and other northern
industrial centers. In many cases, legal harassment has increased
snake-handling activity, especially in Kentucky and Virginia. The
1950s editions of The Louisville Courier-Journal gives
numerous accounts of escalated snake-handling after police
harassment. If snake-handling has been "circumscribed" at all, it
is simply due to members becoming "worldly" and looking for
entertainment in places other than church.

In his interview with Brother Johnny Ward, Dorgan states that
his criticism of Pentecostals "was that their passions for
religious expressions were strong but that their involvements with
individual churches were weak, all emotion and no hard work to
build the church as an institution."(69) Dorgan does not qualify
his meaning of Pentecostals, and leaves the reader with the
impression that Pentecostal churches are unorganized. There are
many branches of Pentecostal churches in the United States, the
largest being the Assemblies of God. In 1990, the Assemblies of God
membership numbered nearly 1,630,000 with over 9,000 local
autonomous churches. They have a general council and general
presbytery that formulates and administers church policies. The
Assemblies of God maintains missions in ninety countries and has a
world population that totals over 6 million. As with the various
sects of Baptist congregations in Appalachia, some free Pentecostal
groups exist. They reject governing bodies from other areas of the
country that are insensitive to their needs and threaten their
sovereignty.

In describing Rex Parker's home, Dorgan states that "the outside
of this home fits well those junkyard aesthetcs that characterize
some areas of central Appalachia, particularly the coalfield
regions of eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia."(73) It is
apparent that the author has not travelled to Indianapolis,
Chicago, Detroit, or New York lately. However, these small defects
do not hurt the overall effect of the book and its contributions to
our knowledge far outweigh the flaws. The Airwaves of Zion
is a widely useful work that gets to the core of Appalachian
religion. It deserves a wide reading that should be of great
interest to Appalachian scholars.

The racial violence that convulsed the South in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has been the subject of a
number of historical works in the last fifteen years. Case studies
of individual lynchings have comprised much of this scholarship.
Despite the contributions made by the authors of these highly
detailed accounts, historians have failed to explain why some
regions of the South witnessed so many more lynchings than
others.

W. Fitzhugh Brundage, a Virginia native who is an assistant
professor of history at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario, has
ventured into this breach. Lynching in the New South: Georgia
and Virginia, 1880-1930 is the most in-depth treatment of
lynching as a distinct form of violence since Arthur F. Raper's
1932 classic, The Tragedy of Lynching. Brundage wrote his
doctoral thesis at Harvard in 1988 on lynching and since then has
published several articles on the subject. Lynching in the New
South, his first book, will shape the historiography of
Southern mob violence for years to come.

Eschewing the case study approach adopted by many scholars,
Brundage comprehensively compares lynching in Georgia and Virginia.
Georgia was representative of the violence-prone Deep South, and
Virginia was selected as a typical border state. Drawing upon news
clippings and the treasure chest of data on lynchings painstakingly
compiled by organizations such as the Tuskegee Institute and the
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
Brundage devotes the first five of his eight chapters to a
comparative analysis of the two states' experiences with
vigilantism. In the balance of the book, Brundage contrasts
anti-lynching efforts in Georgia with those in Virginia and
examines the multiple forces that contributed to the decline of mob
violence in both states by the 1930s.

Brundage makes a compelling case that lynchings were complex,
varied phenomena that cannot be understood simply as expressions of
whites' collective obsession with reaffirming their hegemony over
blacks. While some lynchings were carried out by huge, celebratory
throngs and heavily laden with ritual, others were furtive
executions accomplished by small groups.

Brundage explores why lynchings were so much more frequent in
the Deep South than in border states. He argues convincingly that
Virginians were no less committed to white supremacy than
Georgians. Moreover, whites in both states vigorously defended
segregation for decades after lynching had disappeared as a tool of
oppression. Despite similar levels of racial animosity between 1880
and 1930, Georgia's 458 lynchings compared with only 86 in
Virginia.

Brundage plots the geographical distribution of lynchings within
both states through maps and tables. Virginia's southwestern
counties' twenty-eight lynchings, more than any other region of the
state, primarily occurred in the 1890s outburst of violence in the
rapidly modernizing Appalachian region. The majority of these
lynchings took place near "centers of change" such as Roanoke,
Bluefield, and Richlands, communities which attracted black
laborers as a result of a brief boom in mining and railroad
building.

For Brundage, the social strains of industrialization and
economic depression account only for brief spasms of lynching, such
as occurred in many states during the early 1890s. Brundage's novel
thesis is that lynchings resulted lss from the trauma of
industrialization than from the form of labor relations prevalent
in the region. Lynching was most frequent and persistent in the
plantation South, where "sharecropping, monoculture agriculture,
and a stark line separating white landowners and black tenants
existed." Brundage argues that the likelihood of lynchings
decreased "in rough proportion to the degree that a particular
region diverged from the plantation South." In Brundage's view
Virginia had relatively few lynchings because the Old Dominion was
distinguished by diversified agriculture and ad hoc day labor.
Largely absent from Virginia were the coercive and inherently
violent labor practices that typified staple-crop agriculture
throughout much of Georgia and other Deep South states. Virginia
planters learned in the late nineteenth century that the "lash of
wages was at least as effective as time-honored methods of coercive
labor."

While Brundage demonstrates that the demise of lynching had a
host of causes in both states, he suggests the proximate factor in
Georgia's case was the introduction of New Deal programs into the
southern cotton fields, where lynching had been endemic. Modern
agricultural techniques and capitalist labor relations altered
irrevocably the Deep South's plantation-based economy. The
disappearance of lynching was also attributable to the
proselytizing of humanitarian reformers and the gradual formation
of a consensus among conservative elites that mob violence was an
indefensible assault on law and order.

Brundage's argument that differing levels of mob violence in
Virginia and Georgia represent patterns that prevailed throughout
the South is both insightful and open to question. For example,
Kentucky, another border state with a small plantation sector, has
a significantly more horrific history of racial violence than does
Virginia. George C. Wright has documented 353 lynchings in Kentucky
between 1865 and 1940, one of the worst records in the South. Much
of this violence occurred in central Kentucky where tenant
plantations were uncommon.

Brundage's book also suffers from a distracting collection of
minor errors. The number of lynchings exhibited on his map of
Virginia does not match the number found in his text. Some of the
footnotes would have benefitted from closer attention. The author,
for instance, misstates the publication dates of three
anti-lynching editorials written in 1925 by P. B. Young, the
illustrious black editor of the Norfolk Journal and
Guide.

The prospects certainly are strong that Brundage will receive a
chance to correct these defects in a second edition. Lynching in
the New South is a great leap forward in the rapidly evolving
study of American vigilantism and catapults this young scholar to
the forefront of historians struggling to understand the racial
violence in our past.

In slightly more than one hundred pages, including a profusion
of maps and photographs, this book takes the reader on a fast-paced
retelling of primarily military events in Civil War western
Virginia during the campaigns of 1861. "For decades prior to the
advent of the American Civil War there existed differences between
eastern and western Virginia that would ultimately contribute to
the addition of West Virginia as the 35th star on our nations
flag," the reader is informed on the first page. Although a good
portion of his narrative is devoted to Robert E. Lee's abortive
attempts to hold the area for the Confederacy at Cheat Mountain and
along the roadways connecting the Kanawha Valley and eastern
Virginia, Tim McKinney deals with other aspects of the war in
present West Virginia. Commendably, the author has sorted through
numerous regimental histories, memoirs, and archival collections to
uncover new insights about the men in both armies that fought and
died during the western Virginia campaigns.

By the time Lee arrived in August 1861, most of the region had
been overrun by Federal troops, and the "Reorganized Government" of
Virginia under Governor Francis H. Pierpont had been ensconced at
Wheeling with the help of Union bayonets. On the military front,
former governor Henry A. Wise and the Wise Legion had been driven
from the Kanawha Valley following the indecisive fight at Scary
Creek. Robert W. Garnett, an early Confederate commander, had been
killed near present Elkins. Wheeling and much of the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad had been abandoned, and George Porterfield had been
hurled out of Grafton and Philippi. Abraham Lincoln's generals in
western Virginia, led by George B. McClellan and with superior
numbers, quickly bested the lackluster Confederates. The early
strategy of Jefferson Davis and Lee, his military advisor in
transmontane Virginia, McKinney correctly observes, was
"flawed."

In fairness, the Confederates faced nearly insurmountable
obstacles in what became West Virginia after much of the area was
occupied by forces under McClellan during the first months of war.
Wise probably captured it best when he wrote to his Richmond
superiors: "The Kanawha Valley is wholly disaffected and
traitorous. It was gone from Charleston to Point Pleasant before I
got there. . . . You cannot persuade these people that Virginia can
or ever will reconquer the northwest, and they are submitting,
subdued, and debased." Lee not only encountered hostile terrain
with insufficient troops to defend it but also a population more
likely to help the enemy than himself.

Victory against the Federals who had advanced eastward from Ohio
persistently eluded this youngest son of Light-Horse Harry Lee of
Revolutionary War renown. Besides a dearth of manpower, Lee was
thwarted at every juncture by disease and foul weather that left
his troops ravaged and cold. "The season was a most unfavorable
one: for weeks it rained daily and in torrents; the conditions of
the roads were frightful; they were barely passable," stated his
aide Colonel Walter H. Taylor. The rainy, disagreeable weather
coupled with primitive sanitation in the camps contributed to an
outbreak of measles and related disorders. Although McKinney
indicates that "adequate records of the extent to which disease
played in the Confederacys defeat in West Virginia does
[sic] not exist," sickness took an awesome toll upon Lee's
troops. Their Yankee counterparts also suffered the various
plagues, and at one time during late 1861, Union commanders
reported "1,101 cases of measles, 2,089 cases of typhoid fever,
2,565 cases of malaria, 2,026 cases of other types of fever, 1,656
cases of rheumatism, and numerous other ailments and injuries which
the available records do not reflect."

Finally, Lee devised a scheme to drive the Federals from their
fortified positions atop Cheat Mountain Summit that ended in utter
failure. Instead of surveying the laurel-covered precipice himself
he relied upon others, including a former Arkansas congressman
named Albert Rust, for his intelligence. When his troops became
hopelessly bogged down and were forced to withdraw, Lee incurred
the wrath of Southern newspapers as well as Confederate politicos.
"In short," McKinney quotes Lee's biographer Douglas Southall
Freeman, "the plan of action suggested that [he] was disposed to be
overelaborate in his strategy to attempt too much with the tools he
had."

Before his return to Richmond at the behest of Jefferson Davis,
Lee traveled southward to the Sewell Mountain region of Greenbrier
County to sort out a nasty dispute between Confederate commanders
John B. Floyd and Henry A. Wise, both former governors of the Old
Dominion. Animosities between the two had reached the breaking
point following Floyd's withdrawal from the Carnifex Ferry
battleground and the retreat of Wise from the Kanawha Valley. When
Lee arrived, they were not only encamped within a short distance of
each other but also engaged in a heated argument over who was in
command. Although Davis ordered Wise to another theater, Lee,
despite his later successes, was never able to exercise much
control over the disparate Southern forces throughout western
Virginia.

Following an impasse between Federal commander William S.
Rosecrans and himself, Lee and Davis decided to abandon the region,
eventhough Floyd had advanced to Cotton Hill overlooking Gauley
Bridge. "There can be no doubt that General Lee and others in roles
of leadership for the Confederacy, seriously, fatally,
miscalculated both the Federal Government's resolve to hold West
Virginia, and the strong division among its populace, McKinney
reasons. Lesser-known Confederates remained, but Lee's departure
for the South Carolina coast in October 1861 and the military
collapse that followed pointed the way to West Virginia statehood
without challenge. Yet the author finds merit in the efforts of Lee
and his compeers: "They were able to prevent the Federal forces
from advancing west of the Blue Ridge Mountains, or south of
Lewisburg. Had the northern army done either in force, it would
have spelled disaster for the Confederacy early in the
conflict."

Between 1898 and 1901, the Hampshire Review published the
memoirs of Lieutenant John Blue (1834-1903), Company D, 11th
Virginia Cavalry, C. S. A. With Hanging Rock Rebel editor
Dan Oates brings this fascinating account of the Civil War back
into the public eye in book form. Hampshire County and most of
northeastern West Virginia was a hotbed of military activity
between 1861 and 1865, with the town of Romney changing hands
between blue and gray no less than fifty-six times, a distinction
matched only by Winchester in Virginias Shenandoah Valley. The tide
of war in and about Hampshire County was relentless and
unpredictable. Its populace, as was the case in most of present-day
West Virginia, had divided loyalties. Lieutenant Blue illustrates
this point very early in his memoirs, explaining that word of the
first Yankee occupation of Romney was given them by a man who was
"about half Union anyway."

Blue enlisted early in 1861 and served throughout the war. The
transition from civilian to military life was not an easy one for
Blue and his comrades. Very early in the conflict, acquiring
adequate food, shelter, and weapons was as much a priority as
defeating the enemy. The author's company, also known as the
"Huckleberry Rangers," were initially armed with flintlock muskets
that apparently had seen service in the Revolution. Adding insult
to injury, the men were quickly reduced to foraging for food. When
a honey-laden bee tree was found the Huckleberry Rangers sprang
into action: "We charged and repulsed several times before
capturing the fortress."

Usually outnumbered and lacking accurate information as to the
movements of their adversaries, the Rangers frequently undertook
their scouting at night. This was no easy task in mountainous
terrain, even for those who were familiar with the area. In
December 1861, General Stonewall Jackson planned an advance on
Romney, and Lieutenant Blue and a friend were sent out at night to
reconnoiter the Federal positions. They accomplished their mission
by leaving the road near Moorefield and following the ridge tops
toward Romney: "The snow was 18 to 24 inches deep with no road or
path to follow. We had to pick our way as best we could over and
around fallen timber and ledges or rocks. Our progress was
necessarily very slow. The night was bitter cold."

Arduous service in cold, wet weather caught up with Blue in
March 1862 when he contracted measles which removed him from active
duty for two weeks. The military doctors gave him up for dead as he
explained: "Four doctors stood around my bed but failed to kill me.
They gave up the job . . . an old woman came bringing roots . . . I
soon got better."

Upon returning to duty the author narrowly escaped the advancing
enemy at Romney and later barely avoided capture during another
late-night scouting mission. Acting as a courier on August 9, 1862,
Blue witnessed the bloody battle at Cedar Mountain, Virginia, his
first major battle, while sitting beside Stonewall Jackson. His
eyewitness description of the fighting is quite good. Shortly
thereafter he was involved in the battles of Brandy Station and
Seond Manassas, Virginia. In 1863, Blue participated in the famous
Jones-Imboden raid through West Virginia, and that summer he
witnessed the awful carnage of Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg.
Captured four times during the war, the last being on October 12,
1863, the author was incarcerated at four separate Confederate
prisons. We gain insight from Blue's account of day-to-day prison
life, and his chance encounters with such fellow prisoners as Belle
Boyd add a unique quality to this already valuable memoir.

The book has some shortcomings which, if addressed, would
greatly enhance it. Editorial notes to add information about and
identification of people and events under discussion are absent.
Additionally, there are but three footnotes in a work which exceeds
three hundred pages, and there is a serious need for maps to
accompany the text. Maps of the campaigns and geography are readily
available from such common sources as the Official Records
Atlas. Famous Confederate cavalry commander General J. E. B.
Stuart is mentioned frequently, though his name is misspelled
"Stewart" or "Steward" all but a few times, a mistake maintained
into the index.

Hanging Rock Rebel is enjoyable, educational reading. It
is full of harrowing tales of intrepid exploits which hold the
readers attention from start to finish. Its minor production
problems do not detract from the significance of this work, which
should be of interest to students of the Civil War.

THE SECOND DAY AT GETTYSBURG: ESSAYS ON CONFEDERATE AND UNION
LEADERSHIP. Edited by Gary W. Gallagher (idem., 1993. Pp.
xi, 209. $24.00.)

In this cynical age, another study of Gettysburg might elicit
yawns from Civil War scholars. After all, nearly as much ink as
blood has been spilled over that Pennsylvania field. But in the
case of these two essay collections, the cynics would be wrong. The
focus of these nine exhaustively documented articles is the
existential role of those who make choices in battle. Less the
captives of events than of their own decisions, the officers
studied here were uniquely responsible for how the fight began, how
it evolved, and for the determination of who lived and died. It is
a timeless theme worthy of close scholarly attention, and it is
particularly relevant to Gettysburg. Volume editor Gary W.
Gallagher writes in The First Day that this engagement's
outcome "depended to a significant degree"(viii) on the exercise of
command decisions, that is, on leadership.

In The First Day, drawn from papers presented at the 1990
Conference on the Civil War at Pennsylvania State University-Mont
Alto, Gallagher himself best demonstrates how the seemingly chance
encounter of minor forces which grew into a bloodbath can be traced
to a commanders conscious choice. Evaluating Robert E. Lee's
decisions within the immediate context of his actions, Gallagher
identifies the choice by "Marse" Robert which set the battle in
motion. Before the first shot was fired, he allowed considerable
discretion to his subordinate commanders. By the afternoon of July
1, Lee was present on the battlefield and assumed ultimate
responsibility for the handling of what was by then only a meeting
engagement. He, not his subordinates, permitted a full-scale battle
to develop. He, not his subordinates, chose not to push for the
capture of strategic Cemetery Hill, which became the foundation of
the Union's defensive line. In contrast to Lost Cause
traditionalists, Gallagher concludes that Lee, not chance or
underlings, controlled the first day's events.

A far less convincing analysis of Lee's role is Alan T. Nolan's
essay. Here, the lawyer-author trots out the arguments given fuller
explication in his Lee Considered (1991). Nolan faults Lee
for undertaking the camaign at all; the Pennsylvania expedition
cost Lee's army casualties it could not replace. Far preferable
would have been raids against Northern logistical centers by small,
mobile forces. Confederate supply problems thus could have been
erased without major losses. Moreover, "General" Nolan would have
the Confederacy follow an overall defensive strategy with
occasional sharp, offensive thrusts to unbalance the enemy. This
armchair strategy has a logical tidiness, but it wrenches Lee out
of historical context. The author misrepresents the Confederacy's
lack of a coherent military policy. He also fails to acknowledge
the relatively free rein enjoyed by charismatic commanders like
Lee. More seriously, he seems oblivious to the South's fatal need
for such romantic military adventures as Lee's aggressive
campaigns. Indeed, Lee's defensive campaigns of 1864-65, which
lasted eleven months and not the duration which Nolan prescribes,
garnered only deteriorating public enthusiasm and a worsening
tactical position. Nolan would fight the war with a Confederacy
which is not historically accurate.

A less ambitious, but more successful, revision of Gettysburg
interpretations comes from A. Wilson Greene. According to the
author, Union General O. O. Howard and his Eleventh Corps do not
deserve their traditional blame for the Northern debacle on July 1.
Greene admits Howard's poor tactical choices cost many Federal
lives and captured in the retreat through Gettysburg. But he
credits Howard with initially selecting Cemetery Hill as a
defensive site, which later became the linchpin of Union defenses
on Cemetery Ridge. Command failure and limited success are the
basis for Robert K. Krick's study of Confederate disasters
northwest of Gettysburg on Oak Ridge. There, rebel corps, division,
and brigade commanders did not adequately supervise assaults. The
day's mistakes and its unnecessarily numerous Confederate dead
underscore the military truism that "leaders must lead"(138), not
simply unleash, their troops. Krick's meticulous reconstruction
shows how a supposedly inconsequential firefight was in reality a
profligate waste of lives through sloppy management.

Despite such command weaknesses, the Rebel army nearly won the
battle on the following day. The Second Day, papers from the
1991 Pennsylvania State University-Mont Alto Conference on the
Civil War, reexamines controversial issues from those fateful
hours. The most significant topics include Lee's resumption of the
tactical offensive, Federal General Daniel Sickles's questionable
occupation of an exposed salient in the Cemetery Ridge defenses,
and General James Longstreet's attack on the Union flank. For Lee's
second day decision, Gallagher again presents a persuasive
argument. He finds that sufficient forage existed in the region for
Lee to have assumed a tactical defensive and awaited the inevitable
Union attack. The temporary advantage rifled muskets gave 1860s
defenders would have favored the Confederates. Gallagher contends
Lee's choice to attack was an error, but it was not unreasonable in
context. Lee hoped to capitalize on the momentum and morale the
first days victories had gained.

Debatable choices also concern other essayists. William Glenn
Robertson's account of the seizure of an unprotected point by
Sickles's Third Corps is a model case study on the interplay of
command factionalism, personality and policy, and military
necessity. The author gives Sickles's self-inflicted disaster the
credit of breaking the coordination of Longstreet's nearly
successful attack. The Second Day's remaining essay of
significance also comes from the pen of Robert K. Krick, who finds
that Longstreet, Lee's tarnished lieutenant, did in fact merit his
postwar reputation for untrustworthiness and intentional sloth. He
executed the important march to the temporarily vulnerable Union
left with little concern for haste, security, or surprise. Instead,
he chose to sulk over a strategic disagreement with his commander
and embarrassed Lee by the failure of the attack.

Hindsight by historians writing in libraries is a notoriously
poor tool for evaluating a commander"s battlefield decisions. But
Gettysburg has been studied so thoroughly for so long that it is
possible to determine what a commander knw, when he knew it, and
whether his choices were justified. Most of these essays provide
useful insight into the hellish art of command. Not the least of
the relevant themes is the implicit reminder that, whatever the
century, the most influential and deadly weapon on the battlefield
is the human mind.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy had an indelible impact on
Americans at the time and continues to do so. Many remember where
they were, what they were doing, and how they felt. The same
feelings of frustration, anger, despair, concern, and the eternal
question -- why -- must have been present in the minds and hearts
of Americans after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. A recent
publication, "No Sorrow Like Our Sorrow" by David B.
Chesebrough, eloquently resurrects the passions and concerns that
faced the nation following Lincoln's assassination through an
examination of the sermons of Northern protestant ministers.

For the most part, historians have ignored sermons as historical
documents. As Chesebrough points out, the sermons of these Northern
ministers mirrored and shaped public opinion. On the one hand, the
more popular the preacher, the greater the likelihood that his
words reflected the views of his congregation. On the other hand,
ministers were traditionally held in high esteem and their words
and actions had immense power to frame public opinion. A quick
review of texts about the mid-1800s reveals that ministers were
prominent "movers and shakers" on both sides of the national fence,
whether in the cause of abolitionism or Southern nationalism.

Chesebrough's monograph describes how Northern protestant
ministers reacted to Lincoln's assassination during roughly a
four-week period beginning on Easter Sunday, April 16, 1865. Each
chapter deals with some common outlook that reveals popular
reaction to the incident -- the predominant theme of grief, the
worthy content of Lincoln's character, the responsibility for the
assassination, the demand for justice, and the assassination as an
act of providence. The conclusion places these sermons in their
nineteenth-century context, a fascinating and insightful look at
how the sermons were influenced by years of moral indignation over
such issues as the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott decision,
as well as how Northern ministers influenced public opinion about
the future course of Reconstruction.

More than any other theme, grief dominated the sermons following
the assassination. In many ways, the grief was compounded by the
overwhelming rush of emotion flowing from the euphoria over
successes of the Union Army and General Robert E. Lee's surrender
at Appomattox Court House. In fact, on the day of the
assassination, April 14, the American flag was raised over Fort
Sumter in a special ceremony. Roughly four-and-one-half years of
struggle had come to an end, but the celebration was cut short
after the news of Lincoln's murder became known. Most ministers
noted the contrast and their sermons revealed that Americans were
experiencing something very personal, a reaction akin to losing a
beloved family member. Chesebrough points out, however, that
Northern ministers had not been so unanimous in their support of
Lincoln prior to the assassination. In fact, Lincoln had been
castigated for not dealing with slavery in a timely fashion. The
nine months preceding the assassination were some of Lincoln's
darker days as far as Northern support was concerned, and the
president questioned whether he would be re-elected. Although
martyrdom secured Lincoln's place in the hearts of most
Northerners, it also elicited intense anger against the South.

John Wilkes Booth merely pulled the trigger, according to most
Northern ministers. The responsibility for Lincolns assassination
rested heavily on the shoulders of the Confederacy, the South, and
slavery. According to one minister, "Southern `chivalry' has earned
for itself the title of barbarism; Soutern civilization -- the
boasted paragon of perfection -- has shown itself to be a whited
sepulchre of full corruption within." Most Northern ministers
placed the blame on the leadership of the South; a few believed the
South as a whole was the instigator. Thus, leniency and mercy were
not realistic, reasonable, or acceptable when dealing with the
South. Prior to the assassination, Northern ministers were not of
one mind as to how the South should be treated after the war. The
assassination seemed to bring about a unity of purpose and
conviction that demanded "swift, harsh and certain justice."
Chesebrough claims that Northern ministers were instrumental in
"promoting bitter differences" between the North and South
immediately after the war, even going so far as to exceed the
acrimonious speeches of the "Radicals" in Congress.

Chesebrough has masterfully woven together the articulate
responses of Northern ministers to the assassination of Lincoln and
considered how they reflected and shaped public opinion, at the
same time revealing the social and political conditions that
provoked their responses. The ministers' eloquence and passion are
central to this work. The author deserves praise for permitting the
sermons to take center stage, allowing the words and ideas
expressed by the ministers to plead their case. The inclusion of
two sermons in the appendix is an added bonus. Books like this will
interest nineteenth-century historians, but it deserves a wider
audience.

During the Civil War, the National Women's Loyal League began
its activities under the guidance of Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Through her influence, the newly formed organization collected over
one hundred thousand signatures in favor of abolishing slavery
through a constitutional amendment. Women of this era often
resorted to the right to petition in the absence of voting
privileges. This is a major contribution of Wendy Hamand Venet's
book which presents the early history and development of the
women's abolitionist movement whose goal became influencing
congressional voting behavior.

Neither Ballots Nor Bullets contributes to the growing
literature on women abolitionists. The causes women worked for
gained momentum during the war and eventually changed the ways
women affected government. Venet states in her preface that
politically active women worked for abolition by trying to sway
public opinion during the major conflict. Within this time frame,
women worked together to win public support for the abolition of
slavery through constitutional emancipation. Their collective
efforts laid the foundation for feminist efforts later in the
century. These pioneers attained confidence and public acclaim for
their work. Their antislavery activities, according to Venet, gave
"first wave" feminists their beginnings.

William Lloyd Garrison was one of the first abolitionists to
respect women's involvement in changing laws and gave attention to
their cause in the "Ladies Department" of The Liberator. He
was instrumental in gaining national attention for these women who
strongly believed in ending slavery and also led a broader reform
movement. A theme of this period, states Venet, was the millennial
notion of the perfectibility of humankind which removed all
barriers to human improvement.

During the 1830s, women carved out an important role within the
abolitionist goals they espoused. Through individual and group
efforts, women founded antislavery societies in New Hampshire,
Maine, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, and
Michigan. Their early work before the Civil War was successful
until a major conflict in 1840 disrupted the abolitionist movement.
The denial of full participation in the World Anti-Slavery
Convention in London altered the focus of the women abolitionists
to include feminism. As the Civil War loomed, women abandoned
purely supportive roles at meetings and developed a philosophy hat
presented their gender-viewpoints. It was thought that political
gains might enhance the cause for women abolitionists.

A strength of Venet's book is her presentation of Anna
Dickinson's role in the women's movement. Although her contribution
to feminism has not been thoroughly explored, the author
successfully brings her life into focus with the abolitionist
cause. Venet's study of the creation and sanction of the National
Women's Loyal League provides an excellent analysis of this venue
used by women to battle politicians on their own ground. The league
became the principle instrument through which Elizabeth Cady
Stanton and Susan B. Anthony demonstrated their leadership. It
might be seen as a landmark in aiding the next generation of
feminists.

Venet's underlying theme is the Civil War around which she
centers the increasing role of women in the politics of the
abolitionist movement. Their efforts to interact weaves an
intriguing story of the period and provides the basis for studying
the later nineteenth-century feminists.

Monty R. Baker

West Virginia Library Commission

THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF THE FIELD OF INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
IN THE UNITED STATES. By Bruce E. Kaufman (Ithaca: ILR Press, 1993.
Pp. xv, 286. $19.95.)

What is industrial relations? How has the academic field
developed? Does it have a future? These are the questions posed by
Bruce Kaufman in his study of the institutional and organizational
development of industrial relations. Kaufman traces the origins of
the field to the early twentieth century when both academics and
employers began searching for solutions to what was euphemistically
called the "labor problem." The labor problem included
labor-management conflict, high employee turnover, waste and
inefficiency, unemployment, unsafe working conditions, inadequate
pay, and child labor. As originally conceived, industrial relations
was a multidisciplinary field of study that sought "to achieve more
scientific, equitable, and humane employment practices through both
progressive labor legislation and improved methods of employment
management in industry."(13)

Almost immediately the field divided into two factions that
Kaufman labels the PM school and the ILE school. The personnel
management school argued that workers and employers shared mutual
interests, and the cause of labor problems was faulty
organizational and administrative managerial practices. The
solution was the adoption of scientific methods of personnel
administration, including aptitude testing and incentive pay
systems, the development of human relations employment practices,
and the establishment of some form of non-union employee
representation. In sharp contrast, the institutional labor
economics school traced labor conflict to crucial defects in the
nature of the capitalist system itself. An imperfect labor market
and the autocratic nature of the master-servant relationship left
workers at a competitive disadvantage and open to exploitation. The
ILE school would establish a level "plane of competition" through
the adoption of social insurance programs, protective labor
legislation, full employment monetary policies, and the promotion
of independent trade unionism.

Despite internal conflict, the field of industrial relations
grew rapidly through the 1940s and 1950s. Multidisciplinary
industrial relations programs were established in universities
across the nation, and scholars from diverse fields produced an
outpouring of research on workplace issues. Kaufman rightly
suggests that the rapid spread and increasing power of organized
labor after World War II sparked the "golden age of industrial
relations."(191) It was, however, a short-lived golden age. The
1960s and 1970s witnessed that "hollowing out" of industrial
relations as the field was redefined from one studying all aspects
of the workplace to one devoted solely to the study of organized
labor and collective bargaining. At the same time, the ILE school
became dominated by neoclassical labor economists who focused on
data-driven minutiae and rarely asked big questions. As the field
began to narrow, personnel management scholars fled to emerging
human resourcesprograms in business schools. Kaufman makes it clear
that in identifying with unions the field had linked up with a
falling star. In the late 1970s and 1980s, the field of industrial
relations suffered the same fate as organized labor. As the union
sector of the economy declined in the anti-labor environment of the
1980s, industrial relations gained a negative stigma and IR
programs had difficulty attracting students. This led some
universities to disband programs or merge them into business
departments.

If the field of industrial relations continues to be identified
with the study of organized labor, Kaufman predicts a gloomy
future. He offers, however, ideas for revitalizing industrial
relations, beginning with discarding the old stigmatized name and
replacing it with employment relations. This redesigned field would
use the employment relationship as its organizing concept,
hopefully reuniting the PM and ILE perspectives. While the study of
collective bargaining would not be totally abandoned, Kaufman urges
that unions be viewed as only one of many potential systems of
workplace governance.

Kaufman has done a fine job in untangling the history of
industrial relations. Supporters of organized labor, however, will
have difficulty with his contention that collective bargaining has
lost its effectiveness and his willingness to relegate unions to a
minor role in the workplace.

As stated by the author in the preface, this interesting but
short book ". . . will focus on federal efforts to ensure worker
health and safety in the coal mining industry . . ."(x),
specifically on why health and safety laws were enacted when they
were. Curran asks if these laws have succeeded in improving
conditions and immediately answers that they have not. He then
proceeds to discuss the ". . . disjunction between legislative
intent and [the] application . . ." of coal mine safety laws.
Curran only partially succeeds in this rather ambitious
undertaking. As a current chronicle of the Reagan/Bush efforts to
thwart mine safety efforts, however, the book is a necessary
addition to the libraries of all coal mining and labor historians,
mine safety advocates (both industry and worker), and industrial
safety specialists.

Chapter 1 is largely an academic justification of why this book
should be considered a scholarly work. For the non-specialist, this
chapter can be passed over. However, it does contain some
interesting assertions, such as ". . . miners protests over
disasters become significant only during periods of industrial
prosperity . . ."(9) or ". . . constraints created by the United
Mine Workers of America [UMWA] leadership . . . have . . . tended
to slow the movement toward improved health and safety for
miners."(15-16) These assertions are argued, unconvincingly, later
in the book.

Chapter 2 presents a brief history of coal mining and the rise
of coal mining unions. There is a long discussion of the founding
of the UMWA and the strikes of the late nineteenth century. Causes
for the unrest are discussed, but almost omitted is any discussion
of safety issues, one of the earliest reasons for strikes and
efforts towards unionization by coal miners. Also missing is the
crucial role of foreign-born, non-English speaking coal miners in
breaking strikes and, not incidentally, in mine accidents and
fatalities. Absent too is a discussion of federal and state
responses to mine disasters which occurred in the period prior to
1900. Many of the important safety laws, such as multiple openings
to underground mines and "fire boss" checks of mine workings before
entering the workplace, originated before 1900. Chapter 3
inadequately covers some early coal mining history, including four
pages on England and one on the U. S. There is no discussion of the
effects of coal strikes and the resultant congressional inquiries,
many of which focused on safety. Curran fails to explore the
"progressive" safety-based reforms of te early 1900s, which were
the result of muckraking and national recognition that reforms were
needed.

The book really begins on page 57 with "Factors Leading to the
First Legislation," shifting its focus to the federal government's
efforts to address mine safety issues. Continuing into Chapter 4,
Curran traces the history of the Bureau of Mines, the first federal
agency with a mandate for coal mine safety. Interspersed is the
history of the rise of the UMWA. This material is loosely tied to
safety and only occasionally touches on the government role in the
union-operator struggles. Curran discusses the important role of
the National Industrial Recovery Act in allowing unionization of
the coal industry and probably opening the southern West Virginia
coalfields. Throughout the chapter and the rest of the book, Curran
records the yearly totals of injuries and deaths of miners and uses
these data to show the effects of legislation on reducing both
rates. He also discusses each major coal mining disaster in the U.
S. and briefly touches on news media, congressional, and public
reactions to the disasters and resulting federal legislation. This
is the strength of the book and should be substantially expanded in
the next edition.

Chapter 5 starts with the Farmington disaster and the federal
Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969, much of which was authored
by West Virginia Senator Jennings Randolph and Representative Ken
Hechler. The removal of regulatory authority from the Bureau of
Mines is recorded, but the continuing residual role of the bureau
in coal mining research, much of it safety related, is not
discussed. Suddenly appearing throughout the rest of the book are
annoying, multi-page discussions of UMWA history, Jock Yablonski,
Arnold Miller, the Bituminous Coal Operators Association, contract
negotiations, etc. These are only remotely tied to the topic of
federal laws on mining safety, and students of labor history will
be unsatisfied with this superficial treatment.

Chapter 6 discusses the Mine Safety and Health Act amendments of
1977 which transferred safety regulation to the Department of Labor
and established the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA).
The chapter portrays MSHA through the Reagan years, ending about
1988. Curran clearly shows the effects of the Reagan
administration's efforts to emasculate MSHA, and this basic history
is another strength of the book which should be expanded. The
addition of information on the leadership of MSHA and its policies,
lobbying groups and their players, and the roles of congressional
committees, especially those with mine safety responsibilities,
would be helpful. The fact that coal mining deaths have continued
to drop over time should be addressed as well.

Even with these weaknesses, however, the book is current and, as
such, is a prelude to the promised/hoped for reformation under the
Clinton administration, and specifically Davitt McAteer, West
Virginian and recently confirmed head of MSHA.

Archie Green invented the word laborlore, and in this capstone
to his life's work, he reveals his compassionate philosophy and his
depth of understanding of workers' cultures. For over fifty years,
Green has been involved with workers and their cultures from the
time he was a "Pile butt," a worker on a piledriving crew, through
his many scholarly explorations into the life of the worker.

Most noted perhaps for his celebrated work Only a Miner
(1972), Green here explores the multidimensional character of
occupational expression. Songs, stories, customs, beliefs, and
artifacts, both on and off the job, come alive in meaning and
symbol. Precisely detailed descriptions of elements in worker
culture are combined with analytical comment from Green's knowledge
of folklore, history, literary criticism, and linguistics. This
wide reach of knowledge is flavored and directed by Green's
underlying philosophy of pluralism, one that argues for the
diversityof work cultures. Green rejects monism in its various
forms as he speaks to the worker and the intellectual.

In a brief introductory section entitled "Keywords" that prompts
scholars to review Raymond Williams's learned 1976 etymological
study of the same name, Green questions the division between
toilers and thinkers. Just as those who study culture do, workers
delight in using nicknames and newly coined words to convey complex
meanings. These acts permit dignity and play in the workplace and
are built upon the real skills and knowledge of the worker.

The heart of this work is in the ten chapters comprising in
Green's words "a pair of heroes, two words, two tales, two ballads,
a ritual grabbag, and an obscure trade."(4) John Henry, a mythical
person, and Joe Hill, a person turned mythical, are the two heroes.
Wobbly and fink, the two words, are traced from their origins to
the controversies over their meanings. Tales of Marcus Daly and
Matty Kiely, "copper bards," pose problems in interpreting labor's
views of management, while tales of bosses cuckolding workers, the
role of women in these stories, and the workman's reactions
highlight a humor of powerlessness. Green's study of strike songs
about the infamous 1892 Homestead strike offers a contrast and
complement to the detailed history of a southern cotton mill rhyme
originating in the Gastonia, North Carolina, conflict in 1929. A
"ritual grabbag" analyzes ceremonial acts and ritualistic language
used on the job or in the union hall, ranging from "rough music" to
shivarees and from "shortened shovel" sabotage stories to Labor
Day.

Green concludes the case study chapters with an examination of
the lore of the pile butt, a job Green held in 1941 which led to
his interest in occupational lore. Youthfully inspired by that
direct experience to believe shipwrights had the talents of
magicians, Green uses the trade's techniques, work rules, and craft
rhetoric to sustain his argument that workers develop "enclaved
communities" on the job which tend to an exclusivity based on
experience and knowledge. Thus a cultural pluralism arises from the
very necessity of work; workers simultaneously change and maintain
traditions. This aspect of work culture is crucial to our
understanding of culture and society. Green refuses to turn the
worker into a statistic or an inanimate object moving in an
abstract stream toward some higher goal. From our understanding of
discrete items of job wisdom, Green believes we may understand the
unique pluralism of work cultures and thereby affirm ourselves and
what we do. In a brief "Afterword" Green tells us about "Spokane
Tom" who deeply influenced his life.

It is impossible in a brief review to do justice to all the
ideas in this study. Green uses connectedness of person, act, song,
and story to reveal the import of work in the process of developing
identity. He avoids, but does not reject as an analytical tool, the
use of radical polarization of dialectical opposites. Rather, Green
sees the act of a worker completing a job with great skill,
exemplified by the perfect alignment of screws by a ship's
carpenter, as a connected act of artful accomplishment reflecting
pride. Such acts are examples of the "Tiffany touch," an expression
of self-worth among workers.

Green delights us in his examination of the "visual" John Henry
with an analysis of song, story, pictorials, and monuments. John
Henry personifies work experience in his dual roles of humble
worker and mysterious hero. A tragic failure in his attempt to
master the machine, he is a towering figure in laborlore. Green
traces John Henry as artists and songsters portray him. In a
fascinating piece of art history, John Henry appears as he was
shaped in the woodcarving of Shields Landon Jones, a retired
Chesapeake and Ohio railroad workman (Goldenseal, vol. 8),
and as sculpted in the John Henry memorial in Summers County,
standing four hundred feet above the old Big Bend tunnel.

In contrast to the visual artifacts, humor and sexual imagery
dominate the eleven "Home-Front Harassment" stories. Told by men
for men on the job, these stories recount feelings of sexual
impotency and powerlessness. The stories all assume that listeners
know something about the time and place o the work narrative. They
reveal the economic dependency and helplessness of the cuckolded
worker. The two oldest are stories in which the worker returns home
early from work to discover his wife in bed with another man. The
worker cannot confront the man since he is a "perfect stranger."
The next eight stories are variations on the theme of the worker
who slips away from work early only to find his wife in bed with
his boss. Here the worker invariably races back to work to avoid
being caught, thereby endangering his job. The final, modern
version of the same story results in the worker beating up the
boss, tossing him out of his house, and then engaging in a
successful drive to unionize the workplace. Green also examines the
role of the women in these stories: two defended their actions,
while the others appear as inanimate objects. Green hints at the
possibility that the demands of modern work now threaten to
emasculate the worker more than the power of the boss, and he
expects that as the work force becomes more sexually integrated,
the sexual imagery of occupational lore will be modified
drastically.

Throughout this work Green meshes his personal experience with
wide-ranging scholarship. We learn what shaped his thought by
reading the vignettes of his life while working as a pile butt,
envisioning the cotton mill as a youthful student, or reading
"proletarian" literature. He reminds us that we are all outsiders
when facing the detailed work processes and work cultures of
others. We too often turn the workplace metaphor into language for
our own purposes without trying to penetrate its meaning to
understand those who create the words in the context of daily
experience. The language of the workplace promotes
self-identification and uniqueness, sometimes to the detriment of
others. A "pile butt," with the words hurtful imagery, can be a
term of pride just as "grease monkey" can capture feelings of an
engine mechanic. Both words are from the language of the workplace
where Green believes the worker frames his own humanity.

Lou Athey

Franklin and Marshall College

AN EVENING WHEN ALONE: FOUR JOURNALS OF SINGLE WOMEN IN THE
SOUTH, 1827-1867. Edited by Michael OBrien (Charlottesville: Univ.
Press of Virginia. 1993. Pp. 460. $35.00.)

This collection of the diaries of four nineteenth-century
southern women is the first published product of the Southern Texts
Society, an organization of scholars formed in 1988 to further the
cultural and intellectual history of the South. Each of the
manuscripts is located in a major depository of southern history --
the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Louisiana State
University, and the Mississippi Department of Archives and History.
The diaries vary greatly in length and content, although they share
some common themes. Each of the writers has much to say about
family, friends, social visits, God, health, and sickness, but
little in the way of observation of the world outside the
perimeters of family and home. This should come as no surprise.
Nineteenth-century white women of the social class of these
diarists lived in a world largely defined by domesticity. Even when
worldly affairs inevitably impinged on the private lives of these
women, such as the Civil War years as revealed in the last of the
four diaries, such affairs seemed significant only to the extent
that they touched on family and friends. Readers will not find
perceptive political commentary in these diaries or accounts of the
major events. What the diaries reveal, however, is an important
perspective on the nineteenth-century South which helps shed light
on that era.

The oldest of the diaries is that of Elizabeth Ruffin, member of
a large and distinguished southern family, who wrote in 1827 while
living on a Virginia plantation and also while making an extended
northern trip. Ruffin was a young woman at the time. Her insights
into northern society are probably more valuable to readers today
than her observaions on the South, since much of what she had to
say about home is focused exclusively on her family. The second
diarist is not positively identified by the editor but believed to
be Margaret Wilson, governess and schoolteacher, who lived on a
plantation in Selma, Mississippi, and wrote between 1835 and 1837.
This particular writer offers the occasional commentary on men,
although somewhat tongue-in-cheek. She suggests that women's
fashion "has exhausted its genius," and that perhaps the time had
come for men and women to exchange their styles of clothing and
bring "some originality in the execution of the plan."(125) The
Selma Plantation diary is followed by the journal of Jane North, a
South Carolina "belle," who recorded daily experiences between 1851
and 1852. As did Elizabeth Ruffin, North also took an extended trip
to New York and Canada at this time, and much of her diary concerns
her travels. Of the four diaries, Norths offers the clearest
details about the customs associated with the lives of young single
southerners of prominent families seeking marriage partners. At
home, North is busily in attendance at dinners, social visits, and
dances where young eligible men are present. Much of what she
writes is an expression, at times humorous, of her opinions of
these men.

By far the most interesting of the four diaries is the last,
that of Ann Lewis Hardeman, who lived near Jackson, Mississippi.
Hardeman's diary is important because it covers a much longer
period than the previous three, 1850 to 1867, and therefore reveals
continuity and change over time. Hardeman had the unbelievable
responsibility of raising the six young children of her dead
sister, a task she took on with no apparent regrets. Much of her
diary, as is true for all, but more so in her case, concerns itself
with the health of the children, other family members, and friends.
Hardeman was a deeply religious woman and the death of
four-year-old Sarah Jane clearly tested her faith. Each year her
diary notes the anniversary of the child's death with obvious pain.
Hardeman serves as an example of a selfless individual who, as a
single middle-aged woman, assumed a monumental job, but one which
still left her utterly financially dependent on members of her
family.

In conclusion, this collection of four women's diaries suggests
an auspicious beginning for the Southern Texts Society. It is
refreshing to see in published form the manuscripts of
nineteenth-century women, well edited and nicely illustrated with
family portraits. O'Brien's lengthy introduction enhances the value
of this work by placing the diaries in proper historical
context.

In Unheard Voices: The First Historians of Southern
Women, Anne Firor Scott has begun the important work of
uncovering formerly unknown and unrecognized women who studied and
wrote about topics in women's history during the first decades of
the twentieth century. Unheard Voices, although limited to
five academics who studied southern women, serves as a call to
scholars everywhere to seek out women whose intellectual and
academic endeavors have been previously ignored. Scott begins her
work by introducing the lives and careers of the five women, then
allows them to speak for themselves through their various
works.

As their writings indicate, the historians Scott features were
clearly innovators in the profession. Essays such as "Conjugal
Felicity and Domestic Discord," by Julia Cherry Spruill, and "The
Political and Civil Status of Women in Georgia, 1783-1860," written
by Eleanor Miot Boatwright, introduce contemporary readers to the
ingenious perspectives and methodologies these authors brought to
their work. Challenging traditional historical paradigms by
directing their research toward previously ignored issues relating
to southern women, they made imaginative use of primary documents
and articulated an interest in social history.

In spite of the promise exhibited by each of these women, all
were ultimately styied when they sought positions within academia.
The degree of their frustration varied significantly, however.
Virginia Gearhart Gray, while never able to secure a tenured
teaching position, became a well-respected archivist at Duke
University. Spruill and Guion Griffis Johnson, both married to male
academics who became important administrators, directed their
energies toward family life, part-time teaching, and extensive
volunteer work. Although she held a doctorate from the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Marjorie Mendenhall Applewhite
could not acquire a permanent teaching position and was forced into
a series of temporary positions. This circumstance contributed to a
severe depression, and Applewhite died from the side effects of an
experimental antidepressant medication. Boatwright's response to
her situation was more dramatic. Although her faculty advisor at
Duke assured her of the quality of her thesis, Boatwright was
unable to publish her manuscript. Frustrated by this and other
personal defeats, she committed suicide.

The responses of these women to the failure of their academic
careers reflects an issue which, unfortunately, Scott does not
address in Unheard Voices. For Gray, Spruill, and Johnson,
the historical profession, while a sincere interest, was only one
aspect of their lives. As the wives of tenured male professors,
they enjoyed social and financial security. Boatwright, who never
married, and Applewright, who was briefly married later in life,
did not know the same economic stability. For them, the inability
to practice their chosen profession represented a tragic failure.
Had Scott considered the class and economic fissures which existed
among her subjects, her introductory essay might have offered a
more realistic depiction of the various costs which these women
historians paid.

Scott's book also suffers from being geographically limited to
the University of North Carolina and Duke, where all these women
either trained or worked. While such a large contingent of female
scholars in one location is significant, the reader wonders if
other southern schools also produced students interested in
studying the heritage of the region's women.

In spite of its narrow focus, Unheard Voices is still an
important book. By reviving the works of these essentially
forgotten authors, Scott introduces readers to important historical
writings. The quality and innovation of these selections survives
as a standard against which the rest of us must measure our own
work. Contemporary historians can learn much from the academic
writings of these women, as well as from their strength and
tenacity in the struggles against professional discrimination.

In recent decades, the field of women's history has broadened
society's understanding of the past with numerous important
contributions by scholars in a number of diverse topics relating to
women's history. One area still in need of research is
architectural history. Historic preservation societies have worked
diligently to save important structures, but until recently, little
attention has been paid to women and historic buildings.

In Reclaiming the Past: Landmarks of Women's History,
Page Putnam Miller has compiled a collection of essays describing
the contributions of women to preserving historic buildings that
are open to the public. These essays also point to the often
overlooked fact that much can be gleaned about women's history from
evaluating historic buildings. Miller argues that "if Americans had
to rely on existing historic sites for their understanding of
womens history, a very limited and distorted picture would emerge."
Currently, there are approximately fifty historic sites which have
as their primary goals the development of interpretive programs
about women. Most of these are house museums which focus on
specific women.

Topics included in Reclaiming the Past are architecture,
the arts, community, education, politics, religion, and work. The
articles attempt to combine recent scholarship on women's
experiences and contributions. The purpose of each essay is to
provide a "synthetic overview" of each subtopic using historic
structures to glean insights into women's history.

In the first essay, Barbara Howe studies three aspects of women
and architecture: women as leaders and participants in historic
preservation, women as promoters of better domestic architecture
through theory and design, and women as architects of public and
private buildings. Howe points out that few historic buildings
shedding light on these topics are actually open to the public.
Where they exist, most of the interpretive programs concentrate on
events in the buildings rather than on womens preservation efforts.
She argues that women were designers who used architects' journals
and popular magazines like Ladies' Home Journal. Women, like
Catherine Beecher, published essays on the domestic economy, and
others, like Louise Blanchard Bethune, were architects. Howe
maintains that more attention needs to be given to the individuals,
usually women, who worked to preserve historic buildings.

Barbara Melosh's essay surveys some of the major issues which
deal with the reinterpretation of women in the arts and suggests
how those revisions guide the National Park Service as it chooses
historic landmarks. Melosh focuses on literary criticism and art
history as reflections of feminist scholarship. The homes of Emily
Dickinson and Georgia O'Keefe are just two examples she cites to
illustrate that society can learn much from the contents of a
home.

The remaining essays deal directly or indirectly with community.
Gail Lee Dubrow's article specifically examines women and community
by looking at the homes of women like Francis Willard, who
participated in social reform. She includes information on the
women's club movement, Hull House, and local YWCA buildings. Helen
Lefkowitz Horowitz discusses education, Joan Hoff deals with
politics, Jean Soderlund with religion, and Lynn Weiner describes
women and work.

As the essays in Reclaiming the Past prove, part of
women's past is being retrieved by scholars who continue to find
more and more sources of women's history. The authors use excellent
secondary sources on their respective topics to supplement the
primary materials, including photographs of different homes.
Reclaiming the Past is long overdue and a welcome addition
to women's history. It will help fill a void in the field and be
useful in womens history courses as well as architectural history
courses.

In recent years there has been a renewed interest in Booker T.
Washington. The controversy surrounding his life has led historians
and educators alike to give a very broad interpretation to his
place in history. Virginia Lantz Denton, in Booker T. Washington
and the Adult Education Movement, attempts to address all
facets of this fascinating life. She begins by describing the
efforts to keep an entire race illiterate, fostered by the South's
fear of slave rebellions. In chapters entitled "Prologue to
Freedom" and "Freedom," Denton defines the repression of the desire
for education by one race over another. Denton places the
accomplishments of Washington within the context of the efforts of
groups such as the military, the Quakers, the Freedmen's Bureau,
and perhaps most influential, the American Missionary Association.
Each group, however, had its own agenda in addition to educating
blacks.

When the author turns to "A whole race trying to go to school,"
the account is both amazing and inspiring. The pictures and images
of children and aging adults meeting together in open fields and
barns to learn to read and write should touch every reader. Adults
working all day in the fields and then giving up their nights for
study shows how important was their belief in education.

Denton identifies many influences from Washington's early
childhood. Unlike on the larger lantations, his childhood was spent
working and playing with the owner's children and his family stayed
together. The living conditions for owner and slave did not vary
much but became worse with freedom. When Washington's family
relocated to Malden, it was, unlike today, a bustling business
center. Here the author makes an often repeated error, referring to
Washington's work in the salt "mines." Salt production in the
Kanawha Valley came from wells drilled to bring the brine to the
surface. Denton gives a very even-handed account of these early
influences on Washington's development and later philosophy.

A greater influence on Washington's methods was his experience
at Hampton Institute under General Samuel Chapman Armstrong. This
education reinforced previous influences and the theory "head, hand
and heart" carried him into his position at Tuskegee Institute and
international prominence. The author asserts that Washington never
chose a leadership role in politics. However, his success at
Tuskegee would not allow him to stay in the classroom.

Washington's prominence, the author points out, also made him a
target. Because he spoke with presidents, many blamed Washington
when the presidents ignored his counsel. Although accused of
compromise, Denton points out that Washington often used his own
resources in fighting the injustices vented on his race. The author
speaks to the confrontations between Washington's methods and those
of W. E. B. DuBois and the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People. Readers are referred to the personal papers of
Washington for additional insight into his beliefs, although the
controversy over his beliefs continues and includes the editor of
these papers.

Denton concludes by painting Washington as a realist.
"Washington," she writes, "believed in priorities: First get the
training, the job and the house, and then study Latin and Greek. .
. ." The book is a valuable study of the much misunderstood
Washington for both historians and educators.

Considered by many the father of African-American history,
Carter G. Woodson devoted his life to recovering the facts of a
past buried by historians dedicated to the idea that America was a
purely European-descended creation, mitigated by a Turnerian
frontier influence. Woodson, born in Virginia of former slaves,
immigrated to West Virginia at a young age and graduated from
Douglass High School in Huntington. After an early stint mining
coal in Fayette County, Woodson went to Berea College in Kentucky
and eventually to Harvard for a doctorate in history.

Although Woodson taught school for several years in the
Philippines and Washington, DC, in addition to serving as Dean of
the College Department at West Virginia Collegiate Institute (now
West Virginia State College) from 1920 to 1922, his primary
occupation was with the Association for the Study of Negro Life and
History. Founded in 1914 by Woodson and several colleagues, the
association was a vehicle during the rest of his life for
researching, writing, and teaching the history of Americans of
African descent, their antecedents in Africa, and the concurrent
experiences of counterparts in the Caribbean and Latin America.
Woodson continued to promote the history and culture of African
America while retaining sympathy for Appalachian Americans,
regardless of race, with whom he associated in his coal mining and
undergraduate college days.

Throughout much of his career after the founding of the
association, Woodson was concerned with accuracy and objectivity in
presenting African-American history while striving to free it from
reliance on the financial support of white colleagues and
foundations. In fact, Woodson felt that white Americans did "not
appreciate the feeling, thought, and aspirations of the Negro and
therefore cannot think black."(131) By such action Woodson hoped to
limit white participation in African-American history, and in light
of the racist focus and ethnic arrogance of mos white historians of
the day, such an attitude was probably very appropriate. On the
unbalanced playing field in which the historical profession found
itself in the first half of the twentieth century, his actions were
necessary if a serious study of African-American history was not to
be compromised.

The inability to achieve this objectivity prompted a stern
response from Woodson. Goggin argues that "Woodson's refusal to
compromise and his desire always to control any project with which
he was associated might be considered weaknesses, [but] they were
also his greatest strengths, for he would not allow himself to be
drawn into black political power struggles and organizational
disputes, nor would he allow his freedom of action to be
undermined."(139) This is certainly a valid point for maintaining
one's independence, but it should not deny that other scholars
working equally independently can also make positive
contributions.

The real question then becomes one of independent response to
those who control the financial resources. Objectivity in history
must be independent of economic or political control, and Woodson
is illustrative of what can happen on a wider sphere when such
independence is asserted. In his case, independence led to a great
deal of personal hardship and lack of adequate funding for
otherwise viable projects, but as he pulled ahead of this
adversity, the value of his contribution to history and historical
methodology was greatly magnified. The result was the uncovering of
a new phenomena in the nation's past and the initiation of the
serious study of a very important segment in the formation of
America.

Since Woodson's time, we have only scratched the surface of
African cultural contributions and their impact on a predominantly
European-influenced America. With Woodsons work and that of other
outstanding African-American historians, such as John Hope Franklin
who have continued his contributions, the next step is to go beyond
the history of the development of a uniquely African-American
people to the formation of an American people whose heritage
includes rich contributions from Africa.

Jacqueline Goggin has done a superb job of researching this
biography. It draws on extensive source materials including the
papers of numerous individuals who played a part in Woodsons
personal and professional life. In addition, she cites an array of
secondary sources by or about Woodson and his life, research, and
writing. Woodsons family, which Goggin briefly describes, would
make a fascinating study in itself, especially its role in West
Virginias African-American history. It is unfortunate that a
complete bibliography is not appended at the end of the book,
because the incessant stumbling back and forth between the short
form notes is a physical distraction to an otherwise outstanding
study.

In The Agrarian Origins of American Capitalism, Allan
Kulikoff has written a book that will stimulate scholarly debate
for some time to come. Kulikoff, noted for his book Tobacco and
Slaves: The Development of Southern Cultures in the Chesapeake,
1680-1800, has jumped into the current debate among early
American historians regarding the origins of capitalism. Kulikoff
presaged this work with his article in the William and Mary
Quarterly 46(1989), and most of the essays in this current book
have had some exposure elsewhere. He "seeks to explain this new
debate over the transition to rural capitalism, assess its
achievements and evaluate its deficiencies." One of the major
deficiencies of current study, he argues, is the omission of
household and gender factors. Historians have ignored "the exchange
within the household of goods individually produced by
husband or wife, petty commodities later traded in the local
community." They also have ignored the fact that "husband and wife
had to resolve conflicts by `negotiations' over the division of
labor or resources and cooperate in daily labor." Adding these
dimensions allos Kulikoff to develop a fuller description of the
long evolution of rural capitalism, but the jury is still out on
whether this is the last word.

This book is actually a series of eight essays, the first three
treating "Perspectives on Rural Capitalism," the next three dealing
with "Capitalism and the American Revolution," and the final two on
"Rural Migration and Capitalist Transformation." Following the
first chapter on the transition to capitalism, Kulikoff traces in
broad sweeps the "Rise and Demise of the American Yeoman Class"
from its English roots to the twentieth century. He also adds a
chapter on the "Languages of Class in Rural America," arguing that
the particular use of words did "indicate status, and symbolize
class relations." Anti-Federalist and Jacksonian examples abound in
the discussion.

Kulikoff strongly argues that the Revolution was the
"`bourgeois revolution' that set into motion capitalist
development and conflicts over capitalist transformation."
He reviews the ideology of the Revolution and argues in Chapter 5
that the rural yeoman played a significant role in democratizing
institutions in the Revolutionary and Constitutional eras. In a
chapter on the "Political Economy of Military Service in
Revolutionary Virginia," Kulikoff traces the attempts to give
militia service the appearance of equity and volunteerism, but he
finds that as the war carried on year after year, common soldiers
"came to believe that further service was unfair." Several tables
support this discussion, including Table 6 which shows that the
average term of service for each of several types of enlistees
became significantly shorter as the war continued.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the book for the general
reader are the last two chapters. One covers in broad strokes the
immigration of Europeans to America from 1600 to 1860. Here
Kulikoff not only looks at the immigration patterns of various
ethnic groups, he also follows internal migration patterns as well.
The final chapter adds significantly to our understanding of
slavery and how the ebb and flow of slave migration both from
Africa and within the American states had dramatic impact on slave
families. Particularly revealing is the extent to which slaves were
imported from Africa after the ratification of the Constitution,
and then the very disruptive impact that ending the slave trade in
1808 had in reducing "dramatically the familial and personal
security of African-American slaves living in the upper South."

Allan Kulikoff has written a provocative book, one more for the
specialist than for the average reader. If one can wade through the
economic and Marxist jargon in the early chapters, however, the
average reader as well as the specialist will benefit by Kulikoff's
knowledgeable discussions of the formation of the yeoman class, the
patterns of immigration, and the impact of migration on slave
families. This book rests on exhaustive scholarship; the
bibliography exceeds fifty pages and most paragraphs have six to
eight citations. Kulikoff's perspectives, therefore, are formed
from a very extensive reading of the literature and must be taken
seriously by any student of early American social and economic
development.

Mention the years of the Ulysses S Grant administration to most
reasonably knowledgeable students of American history and one is
likely to hear, "ah, yes, the beginning of the Great Barbeque, the
Age of Excess." At first glance the title, The Era of Good
Stealings, for his study of those years would seem to suggest
that Mark Summers agrees with that assessment. However, Summers,
the author of two other important studies of the Middle Period, has
intentionally chosen an ironic title. Although he acknowledges
serious corruption occurred in the Grant years, Summers argues both
that corruption was hardly unheard of before or after Grant and,
perhaps more importantly, that "corruption had less imortant
consequences than the corruption issue." Corruption was
significant but, Summers asserts, it did not have much impact on
policy. "The corruption issue, by contrast, did change policy. It
helped destroy a national commitment to the blacks of the South and
the Republican governments that they put in power. It hastened the
retreat from government activism; . . . it transformed the popular
meaning of `reform'; . . . it discredited the values of democracy.
. . ."

In presenting his case, Summers repeatedly follows a set
pattern. He raises an issue, such as the Credit Mobilier, the Tweed
Ring, the Whiskey Ring, or southern Reconstruction government;
admits that significant lying, cheating and/or stealing occurred;
then places the episode in a broader context, concluding it really
was not as bad as journalists then or historians since have argued.
The real problem, Summers insists, is that self-styled reformers of
both political parties, many of them members of the press, used the
corruption issue for their own purposes. Politicians used the issue
not primarily to solve the evil against which they railed, but to
batter their political opponents. The result was the exposure and
overdramatization of an important issue for partisan reasons that
rarely led to meaningful improvements or solutions. This in turn
caused the American voter to become cynical and often convinced
that, because government could not or would not solve problems,
government should be reduced in size and function. Smaller, weaker
government frequently meant retreat from earlier commitments,
especially to southern blacks.

Much of Summers's analysis is convincing. Readers might quibble
with some definitions that allow corrupt activities almost to
become the American way, but it is more difficult to dismiss his
basic point that the corruption issue destroyed Americans' trust in
government's ability to be a positive force. Summers's research is
solid, his organization is clear, and perhaps best of all, his
writing is a joy to read. How rare it is to find a well-argued
monograph that can actually make the reader smile or even laugh
aloud on occasion. This study deserves high praise and a wide
audience.

In After Wilson, Douglas B. Craig calls attention to the
neglected ideological aspect of the Democratic party's internal
debates in the New Era and the opening years of the New Deal. Most
histories of the Democratic party in the period focus on the
divisiveness of ethnic and cultural issues such as the Ku Klux
Klan, prohibition, and religion. David Burner's classic Politics
of Provincialism set forth what has become the orthodox view.
While Republicans controlled the White House and the nation's
political agenda, the Democratic party became all too
representative of the cultural and ethnic divisions in American
society. Internal struggles over these matters kept the Democrats
divided and unable to mount a successful challenge to the ruling
Republicans.

Although Craig agrees that the party had its ethnocultural
divisions among wets and drys, urbanites and rural dwellers,
Catholics and Protestants, and immigrants and natives, he argues
that the ethnocultural focus has obscured another more basic
division -- between liberals and conservatives. While the party was
engaged in bitter disputes over the ethnocultural issues of the
day, Craig maintains, "it was also torn apart by a fierce struggle
between conservatives and liberals for control of the partys
economic and social policies."(2) In addition to the ethnocultural
issues, Democrats fought among themselves over states' rights,
federal activism, the relationship between business and government,
and tariff policy. One of the cultural issues, prohibition, was
also ideological, with party conservatives opposing the Eighteenth
Amendment as a dangerous move toward intrusive government.

Historians have long focused on the ideological dimensions of
Democratic party debates before and after the 1920s, and Craig
demonstrates that, although largely ignored in historical accounts,
such divisions did not disappear between 1920 and 1932.
Conservatives like James Cox, John W. Davis, Al Smith, and John
Raskob dominated the party during the 1920s, and rather than trying
to educate the public in the desirability of further Wilsonian-type
reforms, they sought to emulate Republican antistatist and
corporatist policies. Another group of Democrats wanted to keep the
party committed to the idea of using the federal government to
regulate business and to address social problems. First William
Gibbs McAdoo and then Franklin D. Roosevelt, both former associates
of Wilson, led the reformers.

Craig examines the major events and campaigns of the period from
the perspective of ideological differences within the party, giving
more attention than previous scholars to the conservatives who
dominated the party until 1932. Their ideology embraced states'
rights and economic non-intervention, emphasizing the freedom of
citizens to make their own economic choices without the intrusion
of a paternalistic government. With the exception that they also
advocated the protective tariff, these views were not unlike those
of Grover Cleveland, the last Democratic president before
Wilson.

Some of the chapters are biographical studies of the
conservative leaders and their opponents. The author also gives
close attention to conservative organizations that were largely
inspired by Democratic conservatives such as the Association
Against the Prohibition Amendment and the American Liberty
League.

The conservative leadership failed to unite the party in the
1920s, Craig maintains, because their ideology offended the old
Wilsonian progressives, ignored western agrarians, and failed to
inspire southerners with economic prescriptions which favored
northern industrial interests at the expense of southern economic
aspirations. Democrats who wanted a genuine alternative to
Republican policies accused their leaders of "me-tooism." Because
they could not unite their party or attract voters, the
conservatives oversaw three successive presidential landslide
defeats. When they lost control of the party in 1932, many of the
conservatives refused to support Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New
Deal.

Well-organized, thoroughly researched, brightly written, and
persuasively argued, After Wilson is a useful addition to
the literature on American politics between Wilson and Roosevelt.
It revises our understanding of the Democratic conservatives and of
the obstacles Roosevelt and his supporters faced within the
party.

Jerry B. Thomas

Shepherd College

PATRIARCH: GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE NEW AMERICAN NATION. By
Richard Norton Smith (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1993.)

This is a very readable, if understated, account of George
Washington and the 1790s, an attempt to humanize a great national
hero and to portray as eminently coherent and sensible the
presidents efforts to remain above partisanship during the
tumultuous first decade of the American republic. Richard Norton
Smith has written the book for a popular readership and is more
attentive to anecdotal evidence than to the promotion of a
particular argument. The author consulted an impressive range of
material in preparation of the book, but his narrative glosses over
some of the more demanding moments in Washingtons' two terms.

The title Patriarch seems unmerited, or at least weakened
by inconsistencies in the text. Despite all his dignity, Washington
appears too shadowy to command in politics. For example, Smith
writes, "the President's relations with his cabinet associates were
a bit like God's with the archangels"(53) -- charming rhetoric but
without much substance. Indeed, other than the restraint which
Washington brought to his relationships, the "patriarch's"
qualities are more often enumerated than evidenced. Though the
author dismisses Thoms Jefferson's characterization of Washington
as an uninventive, calculating man, this is the Washington of
Smith's book.

In purporting to do more than previous biographers, Smith shows
that his subject recognized much of his strength was symbolic. The
president was obliged to submit to formal audiences, which in his
time demanded a certain stiffness and austerity; in performing
these hated tasks he became, in the words of his adopted
granddaughter Nelly Custis, "imprisoned by his own
celebrity."(25)

Consulting the works of Washington's contemporaries, the author
succeeds notably in recreating the atmosphere of New York,
Philadelphia, and Mount Vernon. However, Smith's narrative is
driven by his focus on the mundane, such as what Washington fed his
slaves or that he preferred vibrant to muted colors. Martha
Washington is an attentive, multi-dimensional first lady whose
well-ordered private world is effectively distinguished from the
turbulent political one. Other prominent characters are portrayed
carelessly. Abigail Adams, quoted at length, is called "saucy" and
is not assessed as a credible observer. John Adams is quoted out of
context, somehow resorting to invectives on the subject of
Alexander Hamilton years before their actual falling out. Of even
greater concern is the unsatisfactory treatment of Washington's
relationship with Hamilton, in which, without having built his
case, Smith asserts Washington saw Hamilton as a younger version of
himself.

An overall problem is the book's vagueness, poor choice of
words, and an abundance of trite homilies: "Interest and honor were
Washington's alpha and omega."(54) A description of the
short-sighted historian who gives Hamilton all the credit for the
administration's finance plan and "minimizes Washington's
adroitness in dealing with Congress" is followed by: "Actually, the
president paid little attention to the bank bill that
winter."(79)

Rescuing the text are some truly probing sections. Smith
presents the newspaper war of 1792 in concise terms, shows
Washington's practical approach to the Hamilton-Jefferson
controversy, and delivers a compelling, sobering analysis of
Secretary of State Edmund Randolph's falling out with the
president. The author develops the theme throughout that Washington
decisively shaped the executive as the moving force behind foreign
policy.

Appearing at the same time as Smith's Patriarch is
Stanley Elkins's and Eric McKitrick's massive and superbly
documented The Age of Federalism. There is clearly no
comparison. Smith's book can hardly tempt the serious scholar, yet
it offers a pleasing glimpse of the times for one who prefers rich
images to cumbersome analysis.

Between 1767 and Christmas 1771, the period spanned by this
volume of The Papers of George Washington, the attention of
the master of Mount Vernon was engrossed by myriad business and
speculative endeavors. His years of commanding the Virginia
Regiment in the French and Indian War were a remote memory. Armed
conflict with Great Britain, much less American independence and a
Washington presidency, lay in the distant future. The
correspondence, invoices, cash accounts, memoranda, legal
agreements, and parish vestry records within this volume,
therefore, open a window onto a part of Washington's world that is
not often remembered. For many, the image of Washington that first
springs to mind is as a soldier or statesman, the public man as
portrayed in numerous Charles Willson Peale or Gilbert Stuart
paintings. But for nearly twenty-three years of his adult life,
roughly 50 percent of his majority, Washington dwelled at Mount
Vernon, from which he simultaneously managed a vast farming empire
and multiple commercial enterprises. By 1771, he was not yet well
known outside Virginia. Whereas many colonists -- John and Abigail
Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Hutchinson, to name but a few
-- could proudly display a portrait of themselve, Washington by the
end of 1771, when he was nearly forty years old, had yet to sit for
an artist.

The breadth of Washington's business affairs appears to be
limitless. The reader will observe Washington hiring day laborers,
interacting with indentured servants, purchasing slaves, and
conversing with the resident manager of the Dismal Swamp Company,
in which he had made a considerable investment. Nothing at Mount
Vernon escaped his attention. A micromanager, Washington
superintended the work of his weavers and spinners and the purchase
and utilization of his tools, equipment, and building supplies. He
scrutinized the success of his hired managers and overseers, the
operation of the mill, and the sowing of grass seed. He knew how
many casks had been filled with apple cider, how many barrels of
shad and herring his fishing enterprise had netted, how many bricks
his mason had manufactured, and was especially observant of his
staple crops.

Washington's slave laborers absorbed much of his attention. He
used a slave as the manager of his Dogue Run Farm, fretted over a
fever that incapacitated many of his workers, repeatedly paid
physicians and midwives to attend his bondsmen, and sold some of
his slaves, a practice that he abandoned following the War of
Independence. Washington paid fees to those who apprehended his
runaway slaves, not an uncommon occurrence; he also lamented the
murder and kidnapping by Indians of some of his western slaves, as
well as the stealing of his chattel by unscrupulous overseers. An
inventory completed in 1771 showed that he owned 231 dower slaves
in eastern Virginia. He possessed about 30 percent of that number
at Mount Vernon. One can only wonder how safe Washington felt
living in their midst, for the editors demonstrate that several
slaves in his neighborhood were tried in 1767 for attempting to
poison their masters.

The cash accounts and other documents reveal additional facets
of Washington's activities. He made frequent charitable donations,
including a financial gift to aid the education of a friend's son.
He gambled in lotteries, raffles, and at cards. He often loaned
small sums to neighbors and considerable amounts to relatives. He
charged interest to his brother Samuel on a loan of 425 (the
equivalent of four years' wages for most skilled artisans) and both
gave and loaned money to his mother.

Revelations concerning Washington's amusements and his unbridled
consumerism are among the most interesting matters exposed by these
papers. Washington loved horses and enjoyed riding. He was fond of
cards and various games of chance, attended plays, races, and
dances, hunted, entertained at Mount Vernon, and delighted in a
daily glass of good Madeira. Washington's acquisitiveness was
legendary. He purchased books, a rifle and pistols, a sword, a
"Chariot . . . in the newest taste, handsome, genteel, &
light," boats, a cane "with a gold head . . . with my Arms engravd
thereon"(92, 552), prodigious quantities of food and alcohol for
the frequent visitors to Mount Vernon, and an endless array of
clothing, home furnishings, tools, and farm implements.

Little in this volume concerns political matters. Nevertheless,
the papers show that Washington, who had been inactive and
apparently largely indifferent to Great Britain's earliest attempts
to tax the colonists, played an active role in Virginia's protest
against the Townshend Duties. In 1769 and 1770, Washington took a
leading part in forming Virginia's nonimportation association. His
remark to George Mason in 1769 that "our lordly Masters in Great
Britain will be satisfied with nothing less than the deprivation of
American freedom" illustrates Washington's growing radicalism.

W. W. Abbot and his staff have maintained the standard of
excellence that has characterized every volume in the Colonial
Series of Washington's papers. This volume offers a cornucopia
of delights for all who seek to understand George Washington, the
farmer-businessman, and his world at Mount Vernon, Williamsburg,
and the seemingly distant western Virginia frontier.

This volume of The Papers of George Washington begins six
months into the Washington presidency and spans the period into
early 1790. Washington was still so uncertain of the nuts and bolts
of his new job at this point that he anguished over the need to
secure the consent of the Senate even before appointing ambassadors
to foreign capitals. However, the reader of these papers will
observe a chief executive who almost daily grew more comfortable
with his office. He displayed an excellent understanding of the
objectives of the major European powers, steadily fleshed out his
administration with an incredible array of appointments, and basked
in the accolades of his countrymen. This was a president who told
himself that he served in this capacity solely for the most
selfless of reasons: to launch the new government. He of course
fervently believed that the United States would be best served by
the success of a strong central government.

This early period of Washington's presidency had an air of
tranquility about it. No public criticism of the president was
heard. No one envisaged rival political parties. It was a time when
Washington was far more likely to seek advice from James Madison
than Alexander Hamilton, his Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton,
in fact, labored quietly and in private to complete the economic
reports that would ultimately ignite the partisan firestorm of
later years. Neither did anyone understand the meaning of the
French Revolution, the first acts of which occurred during the very
week of Washington's inauguration. Washington rejoiced in this
"revolution . . . of so wonderful a nature"(177), but he also said
that he did not believe the French had reached the end of their
upheaval.

Aside from the daily grind of filling vacant offices, Washington
devoted most of his time to Indian affairs and winning converts to
the new national government. Learning from settlers in the Ohio
country that "there is no Peace with the Savages; the Country
bleeds in every Part"(568), Washington prepared for war. He
dispatched an army under Josiah Harmer to the vicinity of present
Cincinnati. Meanwhile, Washington was more confident that the
Georgia backcountry might be opened peacefully. He sent envoys to
Georgia to open talks with Native American leaders and soon learned
that "the Creek Nation has given strong assurances that . . . no
farther Hostilities or depredations shall be committed on the part
of their Nation."(472-73)

To bind together the nation, Washington undertook his first
presidential tour, an autumn trek through resplendent New England.
He wrote ahead to John Hancock, the governor of Massachusetts,
asking that no parades or ceremonies be staged in his honor, but he
was feted in town after town from Connecticut to Maine. Villages
that he had last visited during the dark early days of the War of
Independence wished to express their gratitude for his earlier
military leadership; others swooned over a visit by America's most
famous citizen. Washington spoke with inventors, reviewed troops at
the site of the Continental Army's encampment during the siege of
Boston in 1775-76, dined at Faneiul Hall, met with local
dignitaries everywhere, and sat for Christian Gllager, who produced
a bust portrait of the president.

These papers also provide a glimpse of Washington's private
life. He purchased horses, a globe, watch, wine coolers, and
carpets. First Lady Martha Washington ordered fabric, prayer books,
and twenty-five pounds of chocolate. Washington found time for
business operations at Mount Vernon (the volume includes the farm
reports of George Augustine Washington) and for giving advice. For
instance, to a nephew who was considering hiring a plantation
overseer, Washington remarked that only two types of managers could
be found: those who were lazy or dishonest and produced no profits
or those who were capable and efficient but whose salary devoured
the profits. Do your own work, the president counseled.

At the beginning of 1790, Washington delivered his initial State
of the Union message. He urged Congress to enact a national militia
policy, improve the postoffice and postal roads, and create a
national university. Congress turned a deaf ear to the president's
entreaties. Washington also threatened war with western Indians,
and possessed of the power to put his threats into action, he soon
had his war.

Once again, Washington's papers have been skillfully edited and
published in a handsome edition that includes the contemporary
portraits of the president and a useful map of his New England
tour. Unfortunately, the project is proceeding at a snail's pace.
After six years, four volumes, and more than 2,500 pages, the
Presidential Series has managed to span barely more than a
year, from September 1788 to January 1790. At this pace, few
current scholars will still be professionally active when the
series reaches Washington's second term, and not even the youngest
historian can expect to read the final volume, which will appear
sometime past mid-twenty-first century. The problem arises from the
sheer magnitude of Washington's correspondence. This volume
contains approximately two hundred letters and memoranda written by
Washington in less than four months; he received nearly three
hundred communications during the same period. The editors must
make a difficult choice, either to omit the least consequential
papers in the interest of speed, or to include virtually everything
that passed before Washington's eyes, even if that means an
agonizingly lengthy endeavor.

Charles Kaufmann is currently president of the Kentucky Rifle
Association and Richard Rosenberger was a member of its board of
directors and sergeant-at-arms. Both are avid collectors of the
home rifle made by cottage-industry craftsmen in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries in the continental United States. The
longrifle, a uniquely American product, derived from English
fowling pieces (shotguns) and German jaeger (hunting)
rifles. The principal American contributions were the brass,
four-piece patchboxes, used to store spare flints and patches for
the lead balls and long, slim lines, with barrels often measuring
forty-six inches or greater. Unlike furniture and other folk
artifacts, the "Kentucky" rifle showed amazing regional variation.
Students of these arms can identify when and where high-art guns
were made. Although most early rifles were made in Pennsylvania,
the name Kentucky rifle has stuck because of the gun's close
identification with militiamen at the Battle of New Orleans in
1815.

The book is adequately illustrated with black-and-white and
color photographs. The "coffee table" format allows the guns to be
shown across the width of the page, amplifying certain features.
Full-length shots make full use of this format, but cropped images
utilize only five-eighths of the page, obviating the value of using
this layout.

In a very informative introduction, the authors show individual
characteristics of western Pennsylvania rifles, displaying the
craftsmanship within the study area. The authors studied sixteen
Allegheny County and eight Westmoreland County gunsmiths, and
illustrations are provided for all but one of these. Biographical
sketches are thoroughly researched, offering what can be found on
the subjects. The authors obtained some invaluable genealogical
information which, among other things, shows that a number of the
gunsmiths were related by marriage.

The book is dedicated to the late Robert McAfee, an extremely
dedicated researcher whose lists of many different craftsmen,
ranging from potters to clockmakers, is well known. McAfee never
published anything but freely shared his lists with other
interested researchers. However, the authors lead their readers to
two incorrect conclusions: first, that little, if any, additional
information was added to the McAfee list and second, that there was
a lack of published material on the subject of western Pennsylvania
gunsmiths. Much has been added in both depth and breadth since the
McAfee list appeaed. The book contains no bibliography, a most
curious omission for a university press book.

The subtitle Allegheny and Westmoreland Counties and the
listing of all known gunsmiths in many western Pennsylvania
counties suggests this volume might be the first in a series. The
necessity of additional volumes to cover other important gunsmiths
of the region and their schools is obvious. This is one of the few
worthwhile books on the Pennsylvania-Kentucky rifle.

Any attempt to define the language of architecture in a single
volume must choose its limits. Using a regional approach and
specific time frame are a common means of limiting the study of
American history and culture. Carl Lounsbury applies this
methodology in An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern
Architecture & Landscape, yet provides a work of welcome
depth and completeness.

From early settlement until 1820, changes in the built
environment occurred within a fairly narrow range compared to the
changes triggered by the Industrial Revolution. After 1820,
economic conditions brought rapid growth; advancing technology
brought change in materials, techniques, and business organization;
and improved communication and literacy eroded regional language
distinctions.

In this case, the South is defined in its broadest terms as the
area from Delaware to Georgia and from the coast to the western
frontier of settlement. One might not expect a great deal of
distinction in the language of building between North and South,
given their common British heritage. Yet the variations in usage
cited from area to area within the South itself are convincing
evidence of the likely distinctions across broader regions.

Every entry includes citations from primary sources which,
besides being a delight to read, provide reassurance of the
accuracy of the entries themselves. Lounsbury has sought to
represent a terms range of use both geographically and
chronologically with the original citations. Entries also cite
spelling variations that might be found in period sources, making
it particularly helpful to anyone using original documents.
Variations for some terms are considerable, such as joist, joice,
joyce, jist, gist. Individual entries are not provided for these
archaic variations, and the absence of crosslistings might leave
the reader of a period document no clear route to the modern term.
Lounsbury points out when period usage differs from the common
modern meaning. For example, the term bow window is generally now
applied to projecting windows that are curvilinear and bay window
to ones that are polygonal, a convention that was not followed in
the period before 1820.

The book's more than 300 drawings and photographs for the 1500
entries are useful aides in understanding the definitions.
Illustrations are usually fully identified and taken from specific
period and regional sources. In the choice of illustrations, a
photograph of grain pattern might add more to the term chestnut
than the plans of a South Carolina chapel do to the term chapel.
Still the illustrations add enormously to the potential browsing
pleasure of this book.

Unusual for an architectural reference work is the inclusion of
vocabulary for landscape. The obvious connection between buildings
and landscape in an agrarian culture makes this a logical
combination. Moreover, landscape terms are far less well served by
other reference works. Absent from this work are the sort of
encyclopedic entries for specific people, places, and styles that
usually consume most architectural dictionaries. While short
listings might be useful to someone new to the subject, the typical
multi-page entries found in other sources would be of little value
to the person likely to use this reference.

Anyone with an interest in the built environment can readily
enjoy the wealth of information presented in The Glossay of
Early Southern Architecture & Landscape. It effectively
answers questions about spelling, the finer distinctions of meaning
between similar terms, and variations in usage with time and place.
This book ultimately will be most useful as a reference for those
with a basic understanding of the language of architecture, a
particular interest in the evolution of language, and whose focus
is the South.

Savoring each passage of Meinig's Shaping of America,
1800-1867, one cannot help but think of the author as a
marathoner, brilliantly conditioned and striding with confidence.
This second volume of Meinig's planned four-volume series on five
hundred years of American development is a masterful interpretation
of the trials and triumphs of an emerging nation. Meinig addresses
a myriad of interrelated issues such as territorial expansion,
conflicts with Indians (Meinig's term of choice), agriculture,
urbanization, the Industrial Revolution, and the Civil War. His
fresh approach and engaging prose carries the reader through this
lengthy, but rarely overwhelming text.

It would be a daunting experience for any author to attempt a
comprehensive historical geography of the United States from 1800
to 1867. Territorial acquisitions and conflicts along expanding
national borders are handled especially well by Meinig. There were
so many actors -- the British, French, Spanish, and scores of
Indian groups -- each with conflicting agendas. For example, the
Louisiana Purchase in 1803 added not only vast land resources but
created great geopolitical strife. The Spanish were alarmed since
they regarded Louisiana as a "buffer against British and American
encroachment."(60) If the Spanish were alarmed, Indians experienced
total shock at their displacement and subjugation at the hands of
the U. S. government. Removal was only one part of the territorial
expansion equation. Management of land and Indians precipitated a
huge bureaucracy, military involvement, and construction of forts
and transportation corridors.

The public's perception of land use west of the Appalachians in
the first half of the nineteenth century was as varied as the
landscape itself and often as inaccurate as some early maps. Meinig
is ever mindful of the role of cartography and landscape
interpretation. His discussion of railroad development takes a
close look at the influence of maps, as exemplified by General
Edmund Pendleton Gaines, a Tennessean who had military experience
in overland and river transportation. In the 1830s, he envisioned a
rail system centered in Tennessee and Kentucky, radiating outward
to all frontiers. Gaines's "center-periphery" design may have had
geographic logic but showed "little relation to realities of
terrains, canals, railroads, or even major cities."(345) According
to Meinig, "Gaines' plan appears to be a geographical design so
warped by regional and hometown obsessions and fanatical personal
promotion as not to have merited serious national debate."(345)

The shaping of America was not simply about territorial
expansion; it was accomplished by settlement through relocation,
diffusion, and immigration. Meinig relies on his early research
roots in cultural geography for handling material and non-material
cultural baggage carried by settlers to western lands. From the
westward diffusion of Mormonism from upstate New York and American
Methodism from the Delaware Valley to the Tidewater connections of
the "Kentucky Colonels" of the Lexington Bluegrass, Meinig
successfully creates a nineteenth-century American cultural mosaic.
His discussions of New England, Virginia, the Ohio Valley, and the
Cotton South echo the works of other cultural and historical
geographers including Wilbur Zelinsky, Fred Kniffen, John Jakle,
and Paul Henlein.

Meinig's cause and effect discussion of the Civil War may not be
as comprehensive as some readers may wish; however, his
interpretations of the disintegratin of the union provide an
interesting foil to the earlier chapters which focus on the
assemblage of American territories. He carefully constructs the
geopolitical forces which fostered sectional tensions between North
and South, especially the effects of antebellum state formation.
Meinig notes that "perhaps the best indication of the breadth of
the tear in the body politic were the thousands of young men who
crossed the Ohio River or left other Northern-held lands and headed
south to join the Confederate army and the thousands who fled north
from the seceding states to join the Union. . . ."(487)

The treatment of West Virginia (or western Virginia) in The
Shaping of America, volume II, is minimal, with the bulk of
discussion dealing with the separation from Virginia at the outset
of the Civil War. Meinig provides the reader with scant insight as
to the life experiences of Virginians west of the Allegheny Front
and provides only brief comments on life in the Mid-Ohio Valley.
The author spends equal if not more time on geopolitical divisions
in Tennessee as he does in Virginia. He does pay some attention to
the role of Wheeling as a transportation node and as a political
center but without the detail afforded other areas.

From a technical standpoint, Meinig's complex cartographic style
is similar to that of the first volume of this series. The
symbolization and text on some graphics may be confusing to some
readers, such as the Figure 4, "Southern Borderlands"(25) and
Figure 65, "The U. S. Army Logistics"(404), which may have been
better served with less detail. In all fairness, the author
attempts to illustrate some very complicated geographical
situations; however, for the purposes of clarity, less is more.
Figures 32 and 33, where Meinig compares and contrasts his own
temporal and spatial representations of frontier landscape
development with that of Frederick Jackson Turner, are clearer.
Meinig does not use citations in the text, but quotation sources by
page number and an extensive multidisciplinary bibliography are
extremely helpful.

In the preface, Meinig admits that Continental America
"covers only half of the span originally announced for Volume II,"
creating a need for an additional volume. His original plans were
for TheShaping of America to be a three-volume set.
Thus, the forthcoming Volume III will include the years 1850-1915
and have some overlap with the current edition. This was probably a
wise choice by Meinig, as nineteenth-century America had many
geographic and historical layers demanding equal attention,
especially the development of regional specialization in industry
and agriculture, transportation innovation, and the impact of
immigration. This reviewer is certain Meinig will be able to
deliver and recommends making room on your bookshelf.

When West Virginia Secretary of State Ken Hechler's
well-regarded World War II history, The Bridge at Remagen,
was first published in 1957, it sold six hundred thousand copies. A
dozen years later, the book became a popular movie starring E. G.
Marshall, George Segal, Ben Gazzara, and others. Even so, The
Bridge at Remagen -- actually, the Ludendorff Bridge across the
Rhine River near the town of Remagen -- probably remains less well
known, as either book or movie, than The Bridge Over the River
Kwai or what has been called A Bridge Too Far, a bridge
over the Rhine in Holland that a daring attack by British
paratroopers failed to hold.

Hechler's book deserves much better. Where both of the other
"bridge" books and movies record Allied military failures, the
stunning and swift capture, almost intact, of the 1,069-foot
railroad bridge at Remagen was an unqualified, even typically
American victory. Its capture exemplified the American G. I.'s
penchant for independent action, exercising the initiative, often
at great risk to himself, to gain a military advantage. Many
believe this quality set th American soldier apart from his
enemies.

Now that Hechler's book has been reissued as a quality paperback
with a 1993 author's postscript, many new readers can learn about
the Americans who seized the first crossing of the Rhine on March
7, 1945. Hechler, who earned his Ph.D. in political science at
Columbia University in 1940, commanded a four-man team of combat
historians who interviewed the first officers and men across the
river.

After chasing the Germans across France in the summer and autumn
of 1944, American and British forces stalled near the German
border, lacking fuel for their armored vehicles. The Wehrmacht's
last-ditch offensive in the Battle of the Bulge, bad weather, and
above all, the formidable barrier posed by the Rhine River
suggested the European war would last until mid-summer. No enemy
had crossed the Rhine into Germany since Julius Caesar's day, and
there was little doubt that the Germans had foolproof plans to
destroy any bridge spanning the river before it could be captured.
Indeed, the German High Command had ordered that the local
commander who let a bridge fall into enemy hands be summarily
shot.

Thus, when the first units of the Twenty-Seventh Armored
Infantry Battalion of the Ninth Armored Division reached the
heights overlooking the Rhine and the town of Remagen, they could
hardly believe their eyes: an unblown bridge. Thinking it would be
destroyed before they reached it, they nevertheless took the town
and virtually without pause dashed across the bridge. Second
Lieutenant Karl H. Timmerman of West Point, Nebraska, took the
lead. The Americans faced machine gun and rifle fire from the east
bank and the chance that explosives would demolish the span beneath
their feet.

Indeed, the charges were exploded, but the bridge held
for ten days, allowing more than twenty thousand Americans, tanks,
and artillery to cross. Many Americans were killed in taking and
then holding the bridge against fierce German counterattacks, and
many more were seriously injured or killed when it collapsed. Most
artillery analysts contend this heroism shortened the war and saved
ten thousand American lives. At the time, this reviewer's
rear-echelon unit was about two hundred miles away in northern
France and remembers the elation felt by all upon learning in the
Stars and Stripes that our men were across the Rhine. It had
the stunning suddenness that made us cheer spontaneously: "Wow! The
war's almost over now!"

Ken Hechler tells a great story. The Bridge at Remagen is
no "blood and guts" exploitation of war but, rather, a
well-documented and suspenseful history. Interviews with German and
American survivors and townspeople, and descriptions of the town
and the bridge, all bring the reader a real appreciation of this
pivotal victory. The book is interestingly written and well
illustrated and deserves serious attention and study.

Louis Keefer

Reston, Virginia

A HISTORY OF THE MT. UNION UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, 1851-1993.
Compiled and edited by Noel Tenney (Buckhannon: by the church, Rt.
2, Buckhannon, WV 26201; printed by Mountain State Print, Inc.
1993. Pp. 45)

This history traces the Mt. Union church from its founding as
Haney's class to the log church probably constructed the next year
to the present frame building completed in 1893. The history of the
church is placed in context with state Methodist history and local
history. It is liberally illustrated with photographs of members,
buildings, and events associated with Mt. Union over the past
century and one-half. Those in search of family names will find
many references to the names of members and a complete listing of
burials in the cemetery, though no arrangement for the listing can
be determined. The compiler cites many publications which would
benefit those interested in researching the church or its
congregation further.

HISTORY OF THE OLD KANAWHA BAPTIST CHURCH OF PRATT, WEST
VIRGINIA. By David Clark Baughan (Kings Mountain, NC: The Printin'
Press, 1993. Pp. 178, followed by unnumbered pages of
photographs)

This history of the Old Kanawha Baptist Church was compiled by
the Reverend Baughan as part of the bicentennial observance of the
churchs founding in July 1793. Some fifty pages of history are
followed by membership rolls from 1797 to 1993 and a listing of
meeting places from 1797 to 1845. These sections are followed by
several pages of historic and more recent photographs of the church
and its members. The history is based on church minutes and
arranged chronologically by pastor. Brief biographical sketches of
the men who founded the church, John Alderson and James Johnston,
and served as pastors are provided. Descriptions of the various
meeting places and church buildings are also prominent subjects.
Genealogists looking for family names will have to scan the
membership list which is presented chronologically.

The author uses a combination of photographs, newspaper
articles, and other research to document a number of law
enforcement officers in Raleigh County from the 1920s to 1975.
State, county, and city officers are included. There is a
predominance of articles relating to the elimination of illegal
alcohol and officers who lost their lives in the line of duty.
Photographs document officials and the seizure and destruction of
stills. Some accounts are directly copied from newspapers and
others are compiled from the authors research.

This quarterly publication is devoted to researching genealogy
in Wyoming County. Included are ancestor and pedigree charts,
record abstracts, queries, and a name index. Subscriptions and
requests for previous issues should be addressed to the editor. New
subscribers are encouraged to provide family group sheets with
their subscription.

Claude A. Frazier introduces the reader to life in the West
Virginia coal camps and the work of the company doctor. The son of
a company doctor who grew up in one such camp, Frazier uses his own
personal recollections and those of other former coal camp
residents to convey the importance of the care dispensed by company
doctors to these isolated communities.

Frazier discusses the injuries and ailments a doctor typically
contended with, the establishment of the miners' hospitals at
Welch, McKendree, and Fairmont, and the role of women nurses. He
also addresses traditional Appalachian remedies and their gradual,
although not complete, displacement by professionally trained
medical practitioners.

Roy Edwin Thomas has assembled a number of personal
recollections of mountain life in the State Corner, where the
borders of North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia meet. From
August 1974 to April 1977, Thomas interviewed forty-four residents
of the area, all born between 1871 and 1905, to record the dialect,
folklore, and culture of the Southern Appalachians. Thomas also
includes a brief history of the settlement of the area and
identifies most of the pioneers as English in origin, followed by
the Scots, Scots-Irish, and Welsh. The large concentration of
immigrants from the British Isles in the region leads to an
interesting comparison of the Appalachian dialect with "Old
English," that of the King James Bible and Shakespeare.

The focus of the book, however, is the interviews themselves.
Remembrances of farming, cooking, hunting, fishing, recreation,
religion, medicine, mining, timbering, and more are transcribed in
dialect. The stories reveal much about Appalachian life before the
economic and social impact of World War I.

HOWARD KESTER AND THE STRUGGLE FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE IN THE SOUTH,
1904-77. By Robert F. Martin (Charlottesville: Univ. Press of
Virginia, 1991. Pp. xv, 200. $27.50.)

This volume chronicles the life and work of one man dedicated to
the realization of social and economic justice through Christian
principles. Born in Martinsville, Virginia, Kester spent most of
his life in the South, striving to eradicate poverty and racism
from the region he loved. Kester never truly reconciled his radical
secular politics with his religion, a source of increasing
frustration in his later years. His beliefs were influenced by the
years he spent growing up in Beckley where he was confronted by the
poverty of the Raleigh County mining camps and the resurgence of
the Ku Klux Klan in the World War I era.

Kester is probably best remembered for his association with the
Committee on Economic and Racial Justice and the Southern Tenant
Farmers Union. The dedication of Kester and his peers to fighting
injustice and want played a role in the sweeping changes that came
to the South in the 1950s and 1960s.

This small volume consists of journal entries covering
mid-August 1861 to mid-February 1862 and four 1861 letters, two by
Daniel S. Judson and two relating to his mortal wound in late
spring 1862. The compiler has included several newspaper clippings
describing Company C, Seventh Regiment activities during this
period, hand-drawn maps, family photographs relating to the sites
and individuals mentioned in the text, and a brief introduction on
Judson, family members, and the unit. Judson, an Oberlin College
student, joined the Monroe Rifles with classmates in 1861 and
witnessed much of the first year of the war in West Virginia.
Hatten provides a bibliography and index to the text. Judsons
journal and letter entries provide descriptions of camp life, food,
weather, and the hardships of soldiering. There are vivid
descriptions of people and the landscape and revealing insight into
the thoughts of the young Judson.

General John McCausland has always been a symbol of the
unrepentant Confederate. In this well-documented biography, Michael
Pauley explains why. McCausland had a long and colorful life of
action and controversy. Born in St. Louis, he was orphaned at a
young age and sent to what was then western Virginia to live with
relatives. Graduating at the top of his class at Virginia Military
Institute (VMI), he went on to study law in Charlottesville.
Returning to VMI, he became an assistant math professor under
Thomas Jackson.

At the beginning of the Civil War he was sent to the Kanawha
Valley to organize the 36th Virginia Infantry. He led this unit in
many battles, including a breakout of the doomed Fort Donelson. He
was placed in command of various brigades of both cavalry and
infantry, establishing a reputation as an aggressive fighter.
McCausland's spirited defense of Lynchburg earned the undying
gratitude of the citizenry. His cavalry was at the forefront in
Jubal Early's raid on Washington, despite the troubles he often had
with this difficult commander.

It was Early who ordered McCausland to occupy Chambersburg,
Pennsylvania, and demand a ransom in retaliation for Union
depredations in the South. When the city leaders stalled, he
ordered the town burned, thus becoming a pariah in the North for
the rest of his life. Pauley uses some of the latest photos
released from the Library of Congress to show the 1864 damage to
the town. Immediately after the war, McCausland traveled to France
and Mexico, seeking service in various armies much like other
exiled Confederate officers. After the blanket pardon of 1868,
McCausland settled back into the life of a gentleman farmer in
Mason County. He grew quite wealthy by the time of his death in
1927. He was one of the last Confederate general officers to
die.

This book is filled with drawings, maps, letters, and
photographs both old and new. Especially interesting are the photos
of "Grape Hill," McCausland's home along the Kanawha River. Michael
Pauley was a respected author, poet, and historian in West
Virginia, and his untimely death just before the publication of
this book left a legacy of admired work.

This recent reprint of the 1965 study by Frank Vandiver is an
excellent reintroduction to some of the longstanding questions
about the fall of the Confederacy. Going over a wide range of
topics, this short work is a concise analysis of the problems that
confronted the Confederate government and high command. The dual
nature of the Confederacy, socially conservative versus politically
revolutionary, often prevented the centralization necessary to
harness the South for the total war that was forced upon it.

Vandiver discusses the special strategic challenges and the
effectiveness of the responses by the Confederacy's political and
military leadership. He includes telling portraits of Jefferson
Davis, George Randolph, James Seddon, Stephen Mallory, and others
in the civilian administration. The most insurmountable problems
these men faced were logistics and a difficult Confederate
congress. Despite the general confusion and failures of this
system, Vandiver concludes that reforms improved its efficiency by
the end of the war, but it was too late for the Southern cause.
This is an excellent study and should be read by both students of
the Confederacy and anyone interested in the problems of command
structure in a nation facing a total war.

Joel Monture, a professor of Native American arts at the
Institute of Native American Arts in Santa Fe, provides this guide
to beadwork. Beginning with an overview of Native American
decorative art, Monture then gives detailed, illustrated
instructions on various stitches, designs, and patterns used in
traditional beadwork with examples from the Blackfoot, Crow, Hopi,
Mohawk, and Nez Perc among others. Included is a color photo spread
of authentic beadwork, largely representing nineteenth-century
Plains tribes. Monture also provides a list of sources from which
to obtain beads, needles, and hides, as well as step-by-step
directions for tanning a hide using traditional methods.

Thirty years after his assassination, John F. Kennedy remains an
almost mythical figure in the history of the United States
presidency -- a man cut down in hi prime, taking with him the hopes
and dreams of an entire nation. Sensational accounts of Kennedy's
personal life and violent death tend to overshadow an examination
of the actual strengths and weaknesses of his administration.

In an effort to provide a more balanced perspective on Kennedy
and his presidency, Gerald S. and Deborah H. Strober interviewed
over one hundred people in some way connected with the
administration, including cabinet members, civil rights activists,
journalists, members of Congress, and other national and
international figures. Using only these interviews, "Let Us
Begin Anew" reviews the standard topics: Kennedy's personal
appeal, the influence of the family, dynasty making, the
assassination, and "what if" history. Additional insight is given
on the president's foreign policy, and Kennedy's meeting with
Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, the Berlin crisis, Cuba, and Vietnam
are all discussed. The administration's response to the civil
rights movement is the primary domestic issue covered. The final
chapter on "The Kennedy Legacy" offers a range of responses on the
overall effectiveness of the administration and speculation as to
how history will ultimately record the Kennedy years.

OTHER PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED

ALL ABOUT UPSHUR COUNTY: A BIBLIOGRAPHY AND RESOURCE GUIDE TO
THE PUBLISHED AND UNPUBLISHED MATERIALS ABOUT UPSHUR COUNTY, WEST
VIRGINIA. Compiled and edited by Noel Tenney (Buckhannon: Upshur
County Historical Society, 1993. Pp. 95.)

ANNALS OF THE GREAT KANAWHA. By William D. Wintz (Charleston:
Pictorial Histories Publishing, 1993; published by the author. Pp.
viii, 127.)

LEWIS COUNTY WEST VIRGINIA: A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF OLD LEWIS
COUNTY, THE CROSSROADS OF CENTRAL WEST VIRGINIA. By Joy Gregoire
and Charles H. Gilchrist (Virginia Beach: The Donning Co. for
Hacker's Creek Pioneer Descendants, 1993. Pp. 224.)

LOGGING SOUTH CHEAT: THE HISTORY OF THE SNOWSHOE LANDS. Second
edition, revised. By George H. Deike III (Cass: by the author,
1993. Pp. 40.)

APPALACHIAN JOURNAL (20:3, Spring 1993) "Interview With Meredith
Sue Willis," by Thomas E. Douglas, conversation with popular West
Virginia writer; "It Was the Economy Stupid: The 1992 Election in
Appalachia," by David Sutton, discusses Appalachian politics in the
recent presidential election.

(20:4, Summer 1993) "Interview With Denise Giardina," by Thomas
E. Douglas, conversation about life in the mining areas and
writers' responsibility to their cultural heritage; "Interview With
Richard Curry" by Thomas E. Douglas, discusses his writing career
and his connection with storytelling.

BERKELEY JOURNAL (17, 1993) "Swan Pond, a Brief History," by Don
C. Wood, outlines the early ownership of properties in the area;
"`Swan Pond Manor' or `Folkland'," by Don C. Wood, continues the
history of the manor's ownership; "The George W. D. Folk House and
Farm," by Don C. Wood, offers the origins of the farmhouse; "Folk
Genealogy," by Don C. Wood, includes several generations; "Early
Williams Log House," by Don C. Wood, traces its history through
deed transactions; "Elizabeth Williams Stone House," by Don C.
Wood, briefly describes the owners of another of the Swan Pond
houses; "Williams Family Tree," by Anna Latimer Chapline Phillips,
includes several family lines; "The Hollida Farms at the Swan
Ponds," by Don C. Wood, follows the deeding of this property
through various owners; "Will Hollida Farm," by Don C. Wood,
further documents the history of this later Swan Pond house;
"Robert Carter Willis House," by Don C. Wood, outlines the
conveyances through the twentieth century; "Swan Pond, Turner
Family and Land," by Don C. Wood, includes the progeny of Thomas
Turner II; "James L. Lane House," by Don C. Wood, documents its
various occupants; "Susan Turner Parrot House," by Don C. Wood,
recounts the transfer of this house through the generations; "Jacob
Small House," by Don C. Wood, provides a sketch of the ownership of
the house and land; "Jacob Williamson House," by Don C. Wood, gives
an account of the house and grounds; "David F. Hill House," by Don
C. Wood, documents this 1885 frame house; "Liberty Grove School,
Billmyer Mill and Church," by Don C. Wood, locates local landmarks;
"Fairview, School and Houses," by Don C. Wood, is a summary of
property ownership; "Clagett-Williamson Farm," by Don C. Wood,
relates its deed history; "Stephen West Log House," by Don C. Wood,
describes the log sharecropper's house; "The Williams Store at Swan
Pond," by Margaret Lefreure, provides the names of owners of this
house and store; "Swan Pond Colored School," by Don C. Wood, covers
the twenty-year period of use; "Hudgel-Welsh Swan Pond Farm," by
Don C. Wood, offers an extended history of the property and its
owners; "The Welshes of Swan Pond," by Margaret R. "Peggy" Welsh,
provides an interesting narrative concerning this Swan Pond family;
"The Cassandra Butt Board and Batten House," by Don C. Wood, notes
the little house and its owners; "The William Maxwell Plantation,"
by Don C. Wood, begins with the 1749 grant by Lord Fairfax; "The
Miller-Malleory House," by Herbert York, traces ownership through
deeds and chancery records; "The Malleory Family," by Don C. Wood,
begins with Thomas T. Malleory, born 1790.

CIVIL WAR TIMES ILLUSTRATED (32:3, August 1993) "Fort Delaware
On the Water," by James A. Cox, describes conditions in a Union
prison where many West Virginia Confederates were confined.

(33:1, March 1994) "A Single Step," by Jeffry Wert, describes
the first battle in Stonewall Jackson's famous Valley Campaign.

GOLDENSEAL (19:2, Summer 1993) "Thank You, Homer: Preserving A
Basket Making Tradition," by Gerald Milnes, describes a
basketmaker's art, photos included; "Bluefields Biggest: The Grand
West Virginian Hotel," by Stuart McGehee, is the story of a fine
hotel that opened in 1923, photos included; "Thomas Greco:
Shinnston Shoemaker," by Norman Julian, recounts a Harrison County
repair business and its proprietor, photos included; "Going Home
Again: Once More to Ovapa," by Heln Carper, tells of a small Clay
County community and its oilfield heritage, photos included;
"Champions With Dirty Knuckles: Marbles in the Mountain State," by
Richard Ramella, is the story of the Marble King manufacturing
company and the contests it supported, photos included;
"Remembering Jack: A Hampshire County Summer," by Ted Olson,
recounts the life of a storyteller and musician, photos included;
"The Finest in the State: Harry Shadle's Mount Vernon Farm," by
Irene B. Brand, describes a businessman's Kanawha Valley farm and
home, photos included; "The Farmer's Friend: The West Virginia
Market Bulletin," by Peggy Ross, is the story of the West Virginia
Department of Agriculture's newsletter and ad bulletin, photos
included; "104 and Counting: Bill Lowther of Wildcat, West
Virginia," by Joy Gregoire Gilchrist, records memories of an active
Lewis County World War I veteran, photos included; "Logan
Rambling," by Susan Craddock Partain, describes the walking trips
the author took on weekends in Logan County, photos included;
"Tools of Mountain Living: The Shaving Horse," by Richard S.
Hartley, discusses the uses of this famous device.

(19:3, Fall 1993) "Salt-Rising Bread," by Margaret Barlow,
discusses the pros and cons of this mountain specialty; "Preacher
James and Sally Ann," by William D. Creasy, is the story of a
Nicholas County Baptist circuit rider and Confederate veteran,
photos included; "Not a Going Business: Ed Weaver's Service Station
Museum," by Bill Moulden, is the story of a Mineral County car
collector and his artifacts, photos included; "Getting Ready For
Life: The Douglass High School Story," by Joseph Platania,
discusses the history of the only black high school in Cabell
County and the large alumni reunions, photos included; "Lefty the
Barber: Still Clipping at Cass," by Louise Burner Flegel, is the
story of the once-prosperous lumber town told by the local barber,
photos included; "On Bower's Ridge: Family Life in Wyoming County,"
by Richard Ramella, remembers farm life in Itmann, photos included;
"Ashford General Hospital: The Greenbrier Goes to War," by Louis E.
Keefer, recounts the war years at the Greenbrier hospital and the
many stories from patients and workers, photos included; "Migrating
to the Mountain State: An Irishman Comes to the Greenbrier," by
Francis J. Gallagher, describes the life of an immigrant waiter who
brought his family to West Virginia, photos included; "Falling
Where They May: West Virginia Walnuts," by Paul Fansler, discusses
uses of this delicious nut, photos included; "Remembering the
Maybeury Train Wreck," by Betty Johnson Fleming, firsthand account
of the terrible train accident; "The Mountain Heritage Arts and
Crafts Festival," by Malcolm W. Ater, Jr., explains this festival's
highlights and crafts, photos included; "Mountain Music Roundup,"
by Danny Williams, notes the best of West Virginia's traditional
musicians.

(19:4, Winter 1993) "Recalling the Great Depression: Hard Times
on a Hillside Farm," by Cody A. Burdette, recounts the extreme
difficulties of poor farmers in the 1930s; "Tools of Mountain
Living: The Grain Cradle," by Elizabeth Williamson, explains the
uses of this addition to the mowing scythe; "No Christmas at
Monongah," by Eugene Wolfe, recalls the worst mine disaster in
United States history, photos included; "Good Times Together:
Lucille Hanna Looks Back," by Mary Cobb, records memories of a
ninety-six-year-old Pratt native, photos included; "By God and
Thomas Jefferson!: Mother Jones on the Creeks," is an excerpt from
a play by Jean Battlo about the famous labor organizer, photos
included; "Merchants of Thomas: Doing Business in Tucker County,"
by Carl E. Feather, discusses the lives of local storekeepers from
the turn of the century to the present, photos included; "Dogs and
Birds and Shooting: George and Kay Evans of Preston County," by
Peggy Ross," is the story of a married couple who are famous for
their writing and photography about hunting, photos included;
"Hunting the Blackwater-Canaan," by George Bird Evans, excerpt from
one of his books on bird hunting in West Virginia; "Huntington on
Ice: The Short History of the Hornets," by Clark Haptonstall,
discusses the professional hockey team that played in Huntington in
1956, photos included; "Jane George: Proud To Be a West Virginian,"
by Danny Williams, interview with a popular Vandalia Award winner
from Roane County, photos included; "Poteen: The Idea Goes Back to
Jane and Frank," by Danny Williams, discusses the evolution of an
Irish dance band, photos included; "Home Delivery: Amy Sharpless,
Mountaintop Midwife," by I. Lynn Beckman, recounts the early years
of a rural midwife, photos included; "Sleeping Beneath the Sand:
Songwriter John W. Unger of Morgan County," by John S. Newbraugh
and John Douglas, is the story of a miner-songwriter from Berkeley
Springs, photos included; "Old Soldiers," by Reva Reed, describes
the Civil War experiences of Roane County natives.

(20:1, Spring 1994) "The Knot Maul," by Carl Dodrill, explains
how to make and use this fence post driver; "Alive and Working:
Folk Sculptor Connard Wolfe," by Danny Williams, describes the life
and work of a local artist, photos included; "Death in Durbin: New
Questions About an Old Case," by Elaine Prater Hodges, recounts the
questionable outcome of a Pocahontas County murder investigation,
photos included; "Barg Kass: Cheesemaking Among the West Virginia
Swiss," by Bruce Betler, describes the recipes and procedures of
the Helvetia cheesemakers, photos included; "Eleanor McElroy: An
Influence For Good," by Raymond Alvarez, describes the active life
of a Fairmont humanitarian, photos included; "On the Road, 1940:
Job Hunting on Route 52," by Mel Fiske, recalls Depression-era
memories of a McDowell County native, photos included; "Flying Post
Offices: Airmail Comes to Rural West Virginia," by Louis E. Keefer,
describes the early mail service set up in 1939, photos included;
"Tales of the Rails: Workday Humor from the C&O Line," by
Marshall D. Gwinn, is a Hinton man's recollections of colorful
railroad stories, photos included; "Telegrapher at Thurmond: A Days
Work on the C & O," by Roy C. Long, describes the job of a
railroad telegraph operator; "Helping the Spirits Talk, reprints
the winning stories from the West Virginia State Liars' Contest,
photos included; "Recollections of Ashford," by Robell B. Clark,
discusses wartime duties at the Greenbrier hospital.

HACKERS CREEK JOURNAL (11:2, April 1993) "Some Early Deaths In
Indian Country," includes the names of traders killed during 1763
in the Ohio country as listed in the papers of Colonel Henry
Bouquet; "Register of Confederate Dead at Camp Chase, Confederate
Army Cemetery, Columbus, Ohio," as recorded by Mrs. Philip Peyton
and copied by Chuck Gilchrist, provides four local names;
"Stonewall Jackson's Last Order, offers a brief sketch of events
leading to General Jackson's death; "A Patriarchal Gathering:
Reunion of the Family of George Smith, Esq.," is a reprint from an
1877 edition of the Weston Democrat; "Some Notes on the
South Branch," by Lena Byer, reviews the early settlement of that
area; "Hacker's Creek in the Harrison County, W. Va. Court Minutes:
1784-1810," compiled by Hartzel G. Strader, to be continued in
subsequent issues; "Disenfranchisement," by Richard E. McCauley,
explains how some Lewis County residents were declared Southern
sympathizers by an 1869 court, list of names included; "Military
Prison Records -- Camp Chase, Columbus, Ohio: Some West Virginians
Held There," copied by Joy Gilchrist, includes place of capture and
date; "The Brake Massacre and the First Mrs. Brake," by David
Armstrong, advances a thoughtful comparison of primary and
secondary source materials to document the true identity of this
early South Branch settler; "Where Was Jacob Brake in 1756? Who
Were His Wives? Where Did He Die?," by Linda Meyers, offers further
documentation of the Brake genealogy.

(11:3, July 1993) "West Virginia People in Ohio," by Joy
Gilchrist, contains an annotated list of persons in the 1910
Ashtabula County, Ohio, census who were originally from central
West Virginia; "Lest We Forget," by Nancy Jackson, combines a
biographical sketch of Julia Ethel Swisher and her contributions to
the family's oral tradition; "Revolution and War of 1812 Soldiers
in Lewis County," provides information compiled in the 1940s;
"Helvetia, A German Community," by Joy Gilchrist, outlines the
founding of this Randolph County settlement by Swiss and German
immigrants; "Harrison County, (W)V, Court Minutes," continued from
a previous isse; "First Baptist Church History," compiled by Mrs.
Janet Roby Cosgrove, includes a list of Baptist churches found in
present-day West Virginia by 1790.

(11:4, October 1993) "Peter Hardman Family," by Joy Gilchrist,
traces this German family in Hardy County and Ohio; "Lewis County
in the Civil War," offers muster lists of Lewis County citizens in
the Union Army; "McWhorter Clan Celebrates Cabin Bicentennial," by
Neil Nicholas, describes the relocation of the McWhorter cabin at
Jackson's Mill; "Fort Pleasant, Hardy County," by Donovan H. Bond,
is a brief history of the fort built in the Indian Old Fields; "A
Bush Family Find," by David Armstrong, is a transcription of
Bush v. Smith in the Harrison County chancery
records; "The Bonnets -- Early Settlers on Hacker's Creek," by
Edward N. Casey, provides a history of this Huguenot family's
migration.

(12: 1, January 1994) "Mrs. Virginia A. Washburn, Now Past 83,
Vividly Holds Memories of Pioneer Events," by Wilbur C. Morrison,
is an annotated reprint of a newspaper article which appeared in
1929; "Memories," by John A. Henderson, is the compilation of the
author's serialized recollections of his ancestors and his youth;
"Davis County, Iowa Bible and Cemetery Records," by Dorothy Gandy
Gildizen and Glenna Gandy Carlson, offers information for some
individuals born in Preston County; "Dr. J. M. McWhorter Passes
Into the Great Beyond, One of Our Strong Men Gone," is the 1901
obituary for this leading figure in the history of central West
Virginia; "The Peter Hardman Family," by Joy Gilchrist et al,
documents the family's migration from Germany to the midwest.

JOURNAL OF THE KANAWHA VALLEY GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY (17:2, Summer
1993) "Turley-Pauley Cemetery," recorded by Vada Riffle Turley,
lists names in this Kanawha County cemetery near Hilltop Baptist
Church; "Christopher Columbus Turley Cemetery," recorded by Vada
Riffle Turley, provides Turley family names and dates from this
small plot off Corridor G; "1917 Survey Records Location of Graves
in Ruffner Cemetery," extracted by Richard Andre, is a reprint of a
Charleston Gazette article concerning the occupants of this
East End Charleston site; "Old Kanawha Baptist Church Minutes,"
continued from a previous issue; "Births, Marriages and Deaths,"
compiled by Rose Peterson, lists events from a December 1893
Charleston Evening Mail; "Kanawha Rifleman Biographies,"
continued from a previous issue; "Acting Justices of the Peace for
Kanawha Co. January 1842," provides names and places of residence;
"Clay Co. Marriages," transcribed by Henry Young, continued from a
previous issue.

(17:3, Fall 1993) "Greencastle Cemetery," by Helen Stinson,
lists information from this Paint Creek gravesite; "Old Kanawha
Baptist Church Minutes," continued from a previous issue; "Uncle
Billy Armistead," by Charles F. Armistead, is a reprint of an
obituary for this well-known nineteenth-century Kanawha Valley man
of color.

"(17:4, Winter 1993) "Eighty Years Long and Useful Existence
Ended -- Death of Samuel Carrick," reprints the 1899 obituary for a
respected Kanawha Falls resident.

(18:1, Spring 1994) "KVGS Has New Headquarters," announces the
new location at the former Nitro High School; "Obituaries,"
compiled by Gerald Ratliff, provide information concerning
nineteenth-century Kanawha Valley residents; "Mountain View
Cemetery," compiled by Rose Peterson, is an alphabetical list of
names found in this cemetery located behind the Spring Hill
Cemetery; "United States Pensioners in Kanawha County, WV,
extracted by Gerald Ratliff, reprints an 1884 list from the
State Tribune; "Barren Creek Cemetary"[sic], recorded
by Robert F. Conley, inventories individuals buried here and
includes additional research; "Old Kanawha Baptist Church Minutes,"
continued from a previous issue; "Acts Passed at a General Assembly
of the Commonwealth of Virginia," extracted by Vicie Fowler,
contains mention of early Kanawha Valley residents.

JOURNAL OF THE GREENBRIER HISTORICAL SOCIETY (6:2, 1993)
"Unrecorded Marriages 1813-1814 Performed by Rev. John Pinnell,"
compiled by Frances A. Swope, is from a list provided to Greenbrier
County Clerk Lewis Stuart; "Searching for the Historical Dick
Pointer," by Ancella Radford Bickley presents the challenges of
verifying the various accounts of Pointer's heroic action at Fort
Donnally; "The `Dick Pointer' Gun," by Joan C. Browning, discusses
the provenance of the guns at the North House Museum and the West
Virginia State Museum; "Greenbrier County Records Deed Book VI
1814-1819," by Larry G. Shuck, has been transcribed in
chronological order; "Greenbrier County Records -- Deed Book VI,"
by Joan C. Browning, indexes the Shuck article; "Public High
Schools," by Joan C. Browning, is an overview of the Virginia
system; "Reflections on our Former High Schools," by John
Montgomery, comments on the role of these earlier schools in their
communities; "Big Schools are Better, Right?," by David B. Shields,
reflects on the function of the small school as community focal
point; "You Can Go Home Again," by Rymal Wenger Kenton, relates her
feelings when revisiting the site of her early school years;
"Alderson High School," by Eileen Skaggs, reprinted from a 1965
article; "Boling High School," by Joan C. Browning, is a history of
the organization of the county's only black high school; "Crichton
High School," by Joan C. Browning, is a brief sketch of the last
high school established in the county; "History of Frankford
District High School, 1935," by Rachel McClintic, includes
enrollment figures from the early years; "Greenbrier High School,"
by Virginia Humphries (Yates), lists many students; "Lewisburg High
School," by Domenick Gaudino, names the first six men to serve as
school principal; "Rainelle High School," by Virginia B. Meadows,
begins with a brief history of Rainelle; "Renick High School," by
Domenick Gaudino, discusses the establishment of this high school;
"Rupert High School," by Domenick Gaudino, is an overview of

O. R. Kyle's study; "Smoot High School," by Domenick Gaudino,
briefly outlines its authorization; "White Sulphur Springs High
School," by Domenick Gaudino, identifies one of the few women high
school principals in 1920s West Virginia; "Williamsburg High
School," by Earle Bransford, discusses the high schools
origins.

(16:3, Fall 1993) "A Civil War Story," is an oral history
recorded in the 1930s of James C. Winebrenner's experiences at
Cedar Creek and Gettysburg; "Living 1890 Civil War Vets &
Widows From Wayne Co., WV," is an alphabetical list; "Cabell Co.,
WV 1861-62 Marriages," contains marriages not listed in the index
of Book 1 but are recorded in the first volume of marriages at the
courthouse; "Names Of Ex-Soldiers and Sailors From WV Residing in
Wisconsin Jun[.] 20, 1895," includes regiment and rank; "Listings
of the 5th WV Veterans Taken from Ironton Register Sep[.] 29,
1904," reprints an article concerning a reunion and campfire held
by the veterans; "Listing of Cabell County and Wayne County
Pensioners from the Roll of 1883," are divided by county; "Listing
of Boyd and Greenup Co., KY Pensioners from the Roll of 1883," are
also divided by county; "The Burning of Guyandotte," outlines the
events of late 1861; "Obit Corner," contains information about two
former Union veterans; "Names Of Ex-Soldiers, Sailors and Marines
From WV Residing in Illinois," by Lowell M. Volkel, offers regiment
and nature of illness.

(16:4 Winter 1993) "Families listed in 1870 Boyd Co., KY Census
with White Creek, Wayne Co., WV address," to be continued in
subsequent issues; "Four Pole Massacre," by Cal F. Young, reprints
a 1930 article relating the deaths of Tackett family members; "The
Cabell County Poor House or Infirmary," by Carrie Eldridge,
includes census data from 1860 to 1920.

MAGAZINE OF THE JEFFERSON COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY (58,
December 1992) "Shepherdstown and The Morgan-Stephenson Companies,
1775-1988," by Joseph Whitehorne, outlines the history of two of
the earliest companies to be musteed into the Continental Army;
"Rion Hall and Daniel Bedinger Lucas," by Virginia Lucas, is a
reminiscence of family members and their association with this
Jefferson County home; "Grubb-Conway House, Circa 1762," by Mrs.
Thomas C. G. Coyle and Patricia Perez, is a brief history of the
house and its Quaker builders; "An English Reporter in the Valley,
1865," edited by Cecil D. Eby, is an account by a London
Times correspondent who traveled in the Shenandoah Valley a few
months after Appomattox.

(59, December 1993) "Recollections of Richard D. Rutherford,"
edited by Cecil D. Eby, reprints impressions formed as an
adolescent in Charleston during the Civil War; "A Woman's
Recollections of Antietam," by Mary Blunt and James T. Surcamp,
reprints a personal account of events in September 1862.

NORTHWEST OHIO QUARTERLY (64:1, Winter 1992) "The Contest for
the Old Northwest, 1790-1795: An Overview," by Wiley Sword, is the
opening address for a symposium which focused on the pivotal border
warfare period; "Beyond the Vortex of Violence: Indian-White
Relations in the Ohio Country, 1783-1815," by Colin G. Calloway,
discusses the racial interactions of the principalsbeyond the
prevailing view of bipolar white-Indian confrontation.

(64:2, Spring 1992) "Anthony Wayne: The Man and the Myth," by
Richard C. Knopf, is a biographical sketch of the commander of the
battle which effectively ended the period of border raiding in
western Virginia.

(64:3, Summer 1992) "The British Indian Department in the Ohio
Country, 1784-1795," by Peter D. James, discusses the mission and
management of this foreign service and its role in the alliance
between the British and the Indians.

(65:1, Winter 1993) "William Henry Harrison, Apprentice in
Arms," by Robert G. Gunderson, recounts the tutoring of this scion
of an old Virginia family under the command of Anthony Wayne.

NOW AND THEN (10:1, Spring 1993) "Heritage Hour," by Kate Long,
discusses how schools taught state history but left out the miners'
struggle.